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ENGLAND 



IN THE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 



ENGLAND 



IN THE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



BY 

C W.'OMAN 

FELLOW OF ALL SOULs' COLLEGE, OXFORD 
AND LECTURER IN HISTORY AT NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD 

AUTHOR OF 

"a HISTORY OF GREECE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH 

Ol' ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ' "A HISTORY 

OF ENGLAND," ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

London: Edward Arnold 
1899 

All Rights Reserved 



46548 




\^ »^ASHIS«»!? 



INTRODUCTION. 



From the time of the venerable Bede onward all Western 
historians have been accustomed to date their annals by means 
of the centuries, counting forwards and backwards from that 
year i a.d. which Dionysius Exiguus wrongly fixed as the 
birth-date of our Lord. But it is only in comparatively modern 
times that we have begun to talk and think of those centuries 
as entities with individual characters and attributes. The 
usage by which we speak of a " nineteenth-century idea " or " a 
thoroughly seventeenth-century practice " would appear strange 
to a critic from the Middle Ages, whose landmarks in history 
were not connected with the centuries, and who reckoned by 
* indictions,' or the ' Seven Ages of the World,' or the dynasties 
of his native kingdom, or the time that had elapsed since 
Augustus or Charlemagne. To see how entirely artificial is 
our conception of the centuries, we have only to remember 
that to a Moslem the year 1900 appears as 131 7-1 8, while 
a Jew thinks of it as 5660. But during the last eight or nine 
generations the world has grown so familiar with the idea of 
the century as a real and natural division of time, that it is 
impossible for us to disregard it when dealing with history. 

The practice of reckoning by the centuries has at least one 
excellent feature. It induces the historian from time to time 
to take stock of the current of events and the movement of 
the world during the last hundred years of the Christian era. 
When the century in which we have lived is slipping from 
us, we begin to endeavour to formulate our general views 
on its character, work, and meaning, even though its latter 
years are still too close to us to allow us to view them in 
accurate historical perspective. 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

Every generation has a point at which it places the begin- 
nings of what it vaguely calls contemporary history, a date 
which marks the boundary between the period which has 
passed away to become the exclusive property of the historian, 
and the period in which our knowledge is not drawn entirely 
from books. Between the days which we can actually call 
our own and the time which has wholly gone from us, lies 
a middle period, whose events and general character are made 
real to us, not only by literature, but by the oral tradition of 
the generation that has immediately preceded us. The limits 
of the years known to us in this way are of course continually 
receding, but at present the line of division is just approaching 
the date which marks the end of the greatest war which 
England ever waged. There yet linger among us rare sur- 
vivors who can tell us that their earliest memories are of the 
arrival of the news that Napoleon was dead, or even of the 
rejoicings which followed the crowning victory of Waterloo. 
But the survivors of that generation are few and far between : 
the England of the Reform Bill, and the Repeal of the Com 
Laws, and the Chartist Agitation, is still brought home to 
us in a way that is no longer possible for the times of 
George III. The peace of 1815 marks the division for us 
denizens of the last years of the nineteenth century, and 
beyond it lies a time when the conditions of life, the state of 
politics, the external relations and internal movement of the 
country, seem strange to us, so far do they differ from those 
of the England of our own day. 

It is hard for us, who for forty-five years have never waged 
war in Europe, to realize an England which was for a whole 
generation engaged in an almost uninterrupted struggle — for 
existence as well as for empire — with her nearest continental 
neighbour ; an England who was not the preacher of peace 
among nations, but the untiring fomenter of war, keeping 
the struggle against Bonaparte alive by the unending subsidies 
which she continued to pour into the hands of the military 
powers of Central and Eastern Europe. It seems bewildering 
to our notions of English credit, when we try to picture to 



INTRODUCTION. vii 

ourselves a time when Consols went down to 60, to 50, 
nay, on one occasion to 47 ; when the Bank of England 
was on one black day so near breaking that it paid its 
customers in sixpences, while a Bill to suspend specie pay- 
ments was being rapidly run through the House of Commons ; 
when, in consequence of the lavish issue of paper money, 
a five-pound note was only worth ^3 lys. lod. in hard cash; 
when the nation was taxed to the last halfpenny it could 
bear, and yet from ^20,000,000 to ^{^30, 000, 000 had to be 
borrowed every year to make expenditure and receipts balance. 

Still stranger is it to endeavour to familiarize our minds with 
a time when Yorkshire artisans banded together to destroy all 
cotton-spinning machinery; when Birmingham mobs met to 
burn the houses of gentlemen suspected of advanced Liberal 
opinions ; when the farmers' prayer was for " a bloody war and 
a wet harvest/' and the landowner who enclosed common-land 
was counted a public benefactor as well as a sharp man of 
business. 

But however unfamiliar many of the characteristics of the 
time of the great war of 17 93-1 815 may appear to us, it is in 
that period that we must look for the rise and development 
of most of the peculiar features of modern England. Within 
those twenty-three years, and as a direct consequence of the 
maritime war, we finally secured our commercial supremacy, 
and became the carriers of the world's merchandise. The 
frantic efforts of France to strike down our trade only resulted 
in creating and increasing a monopoly for us, where previously 
we had been merely the most important among a number of 
competitors. Equally within the compass of the years of the 
war lies the great revolution in English industry which made 
our country manufacturing rather than agricultural, a change 
which has altered all the conditions of life in a way which we 
hardly realize till we attempt to call up the details of last- 
century social economy. This transformation within was con- 
temporaneous with a growth of the British Empire without, 
unparalleled before or since. In one generation our Indian 
territories swelled from being a single province and a few 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

scattered ports, to a great land dominion stretching along tli 
upper waters of the Ganges and Jumna, and encroaching on 
to the great central tableland of the Deccan. In the two short 
viceroyalties of Cornwallis and Wellesley our possessions were 
doubled or even tripled in extent, and our influence rendered 
paramount over almost the whole peninsula. Simultaneously 
the colonies of France, Spain, and Holland fell before us, and 
the British flag waved from a hundred points on the Atlantic 
and Indian Oceans where it had previously been unknown. 
Australia saw the beginnings of the modest settlement of New 
South Wales, and in Canada the British began to preponderate 
by emigration over the French provincial element, so that the 
country became a colony rather than a military possession. 

No less important is it that to the years of our struggle with 
France belongs the formation of political parties in England, 
which we can recognize as the progenitors of those of our own 
days. "Whig" and "Tory" at the end of the Great War mean 
something very different from " Whig " and " Tory " at its 
beginning. The political creeds of the rival statesmen of 1780 
often seem incomprehensible to us. Those of their successors 
of 18 1 5 — differing though they may in many ways from those of 
the Liberals and Conservatives of to-day — show definitely the 
mark of the nineteenth century, and are manifestly capable 
of development into their later shapes. We may even note that 
the first popular use of the word " Radical," as applied to poli- 
ticians, dates from the second decade of the period of which 
we are about to treat. 

It is unfortunate, from the point of view of completeness, that 
the boundary of the century prevents us from dealing with the 
commencement of the struggle with France. Logically, we 
should start in 1793, and not on the ist of January, 1801, if we 
are thoroughly to understand the England of 181 5. But bound 
down by the prescribed limits of our subject, we must adhere 
to its strict chronology, and open our story in the year before 
the Treaty of Amiens, ere even the short breathing-space of 
peace in 1802-3 had broken the continuity of the great 
French war. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER rAGB 

I. The Peace of Amiens. 1801-1802 ... ... ... i 

II. The Struggle with Bonaparte : (i) The Naval 

War. 1803-1806 ... ... ... ... 10 

III. The Struggle with Bonaparte : (2) The Conti- 

nental System — The Peninsular War — Waterloo. 
1806-1815 ... ... ... ... ... 27 

IV. From the Fall of Bonaparte to the Great Reform 

Bill. 1815-1832 ... ... ... ... 53 

V. From the Great Reform Bill to the Crimean 

War. 1832-1853 ... ... ... ... 80 

VI. Early Victorian England. A Survey ... 109 

VII. From the Crimean War to the Death of Lord 

Palmerston. 1853-1865 ... ... ... ... 127 

VIII. Disraeli and Gladstone. 1865-1885 ... ... 152 

IX. The Home Rule Question and Imperialism. 1886- 

1899 ... ... ... ... ... ... 186 

X. India and the Colonies— Imperial Federation — 

Conclusion ... ... ... ... ... 212 

Appendices — 

Table of British Ministries of the Nineteenth Century ... 262 

Population of the United Kingdom, 1801-1891 ... 264 

The National Debt, 1800- 1899 ... ... ... 264 

Foreign Sovereigns of the Nineteenth Century ... 265 
Typical Budgets of the Century: 1802, 1810, 1820, 

1846, 1855, 1898 ... ... ... ... 266 

Index ... ... ... ... ... ... 269 



MAPS AND PLANS. 



PACK 

Spain and Portugal, 1803-1814 ... ... ,,, ... 36 

Europe in 1811-1812 ... ... .„ ... ,„ 43 

Sebastopol and its Neighbourhood ... .„ ... 133 

Growth of the British Empire in India .^ ,„ 221 

Growth of the British Empire in Africa ••• ... 254 



ENGLAND 



IN THE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PEACE OF AMIENS. 

When the nineteenth century opened, on New Year's Day 
1 80 1, England was still engaged in the weary war with revolu- 
tionary France. The struggle had already raged 
for eight years, and seemed as far from an end as withVi^ce^ 
ever. It made little difference to its character 
that the governnjent with which the contest had to be fought 
out was no longer the corrupt Directory of Barras. The 
military despotism of the new First Consul, Napoleon Bona- 
parte, was quite as hostile to England, and infinitely more 
formidable. Till he had tried his strength against her and 
learnt the limitations of his power, Bonaparte was not likely 
to come to terms. 

Moreover, we had just ascertained that we should have to 
fight him single-handed. The last of our powerful isolation of 
continental allies was now about to withdraw from Great 
the struggle. Austria had already opened nego- "»^*^"* 
tiations for peace with the First Consul : since the defeat of 

6 



2 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Hohenlinden (December 3, 1800) her position seemed un- 
tenable, and she was glad to be permitted to retire from the 
war, still retaining her ill-gotten gains in Italy, the lands of 
the unfortunate republic of Venice. 

Bonaparte had resolved to let her off easily : not only did he 
wish to have his hands free for the duel with Great Britain and 
the internal reorganization of France, but he was 
ofLmf^lle. jealous lest Moreau, the victor of Hohenlinden, 
might dictate peace at the gates of Vienna, and so 
cast into the shade his own achievements at Marengo in the 
previous summer. Hence came the peace of Luneville (Feb- 
ruary 9, 1 801), which took Austria out of the struggle against 
Bonaparte for more than four years. 

Russia, the other ally of England in the war of 1798-9, 
had already made her peace with France : the eccentric Czar 
P . . Paul had not only thrown over the British 
Armed alliance, but had ranged himself on the side of 

Neutrality* Britain's enemies. Inspired by a perverse and 
wrong-headed admiration for the person of the First Consul, he 
had set himself to aid him by every means in his power. In 
December, 1800, he had formed a League of the Baltic Powers : 
Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia declared an " Armed Neu- 
trality " during the remainder of the struggle between England 
and France. Though not nominally directed against the 
former power, the "Armed Neutrality" was practically a 
declaration of hostility against her, for the confederates under- 
took to oppose — if necessary, by force of arms — the English 
doctrine that a neutral flag did not cover the goods of a 
belligerent on the high seas. The theory that neutral ships 
might be searched for contraband merchandise has long been 
abandoned, but in 1801 it was strongly held by British states- 
men, and had already caused much friction with Denmark and 
other powers. The hot-headed Czar had followed up his 
declaration of Armed Neutrality by seizing the English ships 
ice-bound in Russian ports, and throwing their crews into 



GREAT BRITAIN IN 1801. 3 

prison — proceedings which left no doubt as to his future 
poHcy. 

In 1 80 1, therefore, England had to face not only her old 
enemy across the Channel, but the new league of the Baltic 
states. The prospect was not cheering, for the p. 
internal condition of the United Kingdom was difficulties of 
anything but satisfactory. The last throes of the ^"Sland. 
Irish rebellion had died down, and in 1800 Castlereagh had 
bribed and cajoled the Parliament on St. Stephen's Green to 
vote away its own legislative independence and consent to the 
Union with Great Britain. But if the position in Ireland was 
less desperate than it had been three years before, the general 
aspect of domestic affairs was gloomy. Dearth had prevailed 
all through 1800, and the rise in the price of bread had been 
followed by its usual consequences of discontent and riot. 
^ The National Debt was piUng itself up at the most fearful rate 
— the revenue had been in 1800 only ;£^3 9,000,000, while the 
expenditure had been ;^63, 000,000; the immense difference 
between the two had to be made up by borrowing. The 
military enterprises of Great Britain had been uniformly un- 
successful, save indeed in India. The last of them, the invasion 
of Holland in 1799, had been perhaps the worst managed of 
the whole series. It was true that we had been as regularly 
victorious at sea as we had been unfortunate on land, but even 
our greatest triumphs — Camperdown, St. Vincent, and the Nile 
— had been defensive rather than offensive successes. We had 
prevented France and her allies from insulting our own shores, 
or from gaining a mastery in the waters of the Mediterranean. 
But Jervis, Duncan, and Nelson had been powerless to check 
the establishment of a French domination on the mainland of 
Western Europe. We had swept the mercantile marine of 
France, Spain, and Holland from the seas, and appropriated 
their carrying trade. Yet, since our great enemy had never 
been mainly dependent on its seaborne commerce, and since 
the woes of Dutch or Spanish merchants were not likely to 



4 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

touch Bonaparte's heart, we could bring comparatively little 
pressure to bear upon France. It was not till he tried his 
worst against Great Britain and found that he could not hope to 
deal her any serious blow, that the First Consul evinced any 
real desire for peace. Meanwhile he hoped to retain his new 
conquest of Egypt, and to bring to the aid of the shattered 
navies of France and Spain the fresh naval resources of the 
Baltic powers. 

It was not under the guidance of William Pitt, whose 
unswerving hand had hitherto directed the foreign policy of 

Great Britain, that the last year of the Revolu- 
of^Pkt. " tionary war was destined to be fought out. 

Early in 1801 he resigned his office, on a question 
which, important enough in itself, was yet but a side issue in 
this time of stress and peril. While negotiating the details of 
the Union with Ireland, he had pledged his word to the Irish 
Catholics to introduce in the new United Parliament legislation 
for the relief of their many political disabilities. This he was 
preparing to do, when he found that the old king was deter- 
mined to put his veto on any such action. Of the many deep- 
rooted prejudices of George III. none was more violent than 
his dislike for Romanists, and he had contrived to persuade 
himself that to give his assent to such a bill as Pitt was drafting 
would involve him in a breach of his Coronation Oath, " to 
defend the Protestant Church as by law established." When 
informed of the king's resolve, Pitt resigned (February, 1801) : 
his exaggerated sense of loyalty to his old master prevented 
him from forcing matters to the point of actual conflict between 
king and ministry. He has been much censured, both for 
leaving the helm of state when the foreign danger was still 
so great, and for refusing to bring stronger pressure on the 
king, who, in spite of his obstinacy, might have yielded at the 
actual moment of friction. 

With Pitt some of his personal friends retired from office, 
but the Tories still retained their hold on the government, and 



THE FRENCH EXPELLED FROM EGYPT. 5 

continued to carry out Pitt's policy in every detail. The new 
prime minister was Henry Addington, Speaker ^^jdington 
of the House of Commons, a man of narrow prime 
views and limited ability, chiefly notable for his "^^"^^ ®^* 
subservience to the crown and his utter want of originality. 
Addington, and not Pitt, was the man destined to bring the great 
Revolutionary war to its end, though to his predecessor must be 
given the credit of devising the measures which finally brought 
it to a successful conclusion. 

Before leavmg office Pitt had made arrangements for the 
carrying out of two great expeditions, both of which were 
destined to win complete success. The first was ^j^ Ee~vo- 
aimed against the new French colony in Egypt, tian expe- 
An English army concentrated in the Mediter- ^ ^°"* 
ranean was to land in the Delta and assail the French from the 
front, while a subsidiary force from India ascended the Red 
Sea, crossed the desert, and struck into the valley of the Nile 
south of Cairo. As it chanced, the Indian army arrived too 
late to take any part in the fighting, the larger expedition 
having done all the work. 

The French general Menou, who had to face the attack, 
chanced to be wholly incompetent. He was an eccentric and 
histrionic personage, who had embraced Mohamet- -pj^^ French 
anism to please Bonaparte, and thought more of expelled 
his poses and of his proclamations than of strategy. ^^"^ ^^^ ' 
He divided his troops up into two bodies, so that the 20,000 
English who landed at Aboukir, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, 
were superior to each fraction, though far inferior in number 'to 
the whole army of Egypt. Two fights in front of Alexandria 
broke the main force of the French, though the gallant Aber- 
cromby fell in the moment of victory. After short sieges the 
two halves of Menou's army, shut up the one in Cairo and the 
other in Alexandria, laid down their arms, and all Egypt was 
in our hands (March-July, 1801). Bonaparte's dream of an 
Eastern empire had come to a disastrous end. This was 



6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

inevitable from the first; without command of the sea such 
an outlying possession could not possibly be maintained. 

Not less complete was the success of the English in the 
Baltic against the signatories of the declaration of Armed 

Neutrality. The bitter northern winter, which 
^oediSon^ seals up the Russian and Swedish ports, prevented 

the early concentration of the allied fleets. 
Before the ice had broken up, an English squadron had been 
sent off, with orders to throw itself between the scattered 
divisions of the enemy, and to destroy them in detail. Such a 
plan was absolutely necessary, for if the confederate navies 
could have massed themselves they might have taken the sea 
with more than fifty ships of the line, and the British squadron 
numbered no more than eighteen. Nelson sailed with them, 
but only as second-in-command : by some inexplicable stupidity 
of those in charge at the Admiralty, he had been placed under 
the orders of Sir Hyde Parker, a respectable veteran destitute 
of all initiative and dash. The squadron reached the Sound 
on March 30, and three days later attacked Copenhagen, 
while the Russians and Swedes were still wholly ignorant of 
their approach. 

The Danes had protected their capital and arsenal by a line 
of floating batteries interspersed with ships of war. Parker 

thought their front almost too formidable to be 
Copenhag-en. attacked, but finally gave Nelson permission to 

go in with twelve ships and do his best. The 
approach lay up a narrow channel between sandbanks, on 
which more than one of the English ships went aground. But 
Nelson forced his way up to the enemy, and engaged with them 
in the most furious cannonade of the whole Revolutionary war. 
No other of England's enemies fought their ships with such 
splendid obstinacy as the Danes : for some time Nelson seemed 
to be making so little progress that his cautious superior hung 
out signals desiring him to draw off and retire. But Nelson 
turned his blind eye to the signals, and persisted in the fight 



THE TREATY OF AMIENS. 7 

till the Danish floating batteries were burnt or sunk. Although 
the shore forts still held out, the Prince Regent of Denmark 
then yielded to Nelson's summons, and consented to suspend 
his adherence to the Armed Neutrality. The British fleet was 
then directed against Cronstadt, but its presence in Russian 
waters turned out to be unnecessary. Ten days before the 
battle of Copenhagen the Czar Paul had fallen, the victim of a 
palace conspiracy. His constant petty tyranny and his mad 
caprices had driven his nobles to desperation, and on the night 
of March 23, 1801, he was strangled in his bedroom by a 
band of his own courtiers. His son and successor, Alexander, 
at once reversed his policy, released the English prisoners, and 
declared that the Baltic league was at an end. 

Thus the new and formidable weapon which Bonaparte had 
intended to turn against Great Britain was shattered, a few 
months before the last French garrison in Egypt Conclusion 
was driven to surrender. Foiled in both quarters, of the Treaty 
the First Consul at last began to make genuine of Amiens. 
overtures for peace : his earlier offers had no reality in them. 
Addington and his cabinet were far from realizing the bitter 
hatred of England which Bonaparte nourished in his heart, 
and believed that a permanent pacification with him presented 
no insuperable difficulties. The negotiations, which com- 
menced in the summer of 1801, dragged on for many 
months, and the definite Treaty of Amiens was only signed 
on March 27, 1802. 

By it England acknowledged the government of the First 
Consul, and accepted accomplished facts by recognizing the 
new boundaries of France and of her vassals, 
the Batavian, Helvetic, and Cisalpine Republics t^e^Trla^^^ 
— new names which cloaked the identity of the 
Seven United Provinces, of the Swiss Confederates, and of 
Lombardy. Great Britain restored to France all her lost 
colonies in the West and East Indies ; but Bonaparte — always 
liberal with the property of his unfortunate allies — allowed 



8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the conqueror to retain the Spanish island of Trinidad in the 
West, and in the East the important Dutch settlement of 
Ceylon. Charles IV. of Spain and the Batavian Republic, 
however, received back the rest of the possessions of which 
they had been stripped, the former recovering the island of 
Minorca, the latter the Cape of Good Hope, both points of 
high strategical importance which English statesmen sur- 
rendered with deep regret. One more among the numerous 
clauses of the treaty requires mention — England had just 
captured Malta, which Bonaparte, in 1798, had lawlessly seized 
from the Knights of St. John without any declaration of war. 
The treaty provided that this important island, the key of 
the central Mediterranean, should be evacuated by the British 
forces and restored to its original owners, when the Order 
should have been reconstituted and remodelled. Herein lay 
the germs of much future trouble. 

By the Treaty of Amiens England, perhaps, gave up more 
than was absolutely necessary. Her position was a very 
Expediency strong one after the French failures in Egypt 
of the Treaty and the Baltic ; and it was only a genuine wish 
for peace, and a misplaced confidence m the good 
intentions of Bonaparte, which led the Addington ministry to 
give up so many valuable conquests. England, in spite of all 
her financial burdens, had still plenty of strength left in her. 
The expense of the war, monstrous as it had been, was almost 
made up to her by the extraordinary growth of English com- 
merce since 1793. The destruction of the mercantile marine 
of France, Spain, and Holland had led to an unparalleled 
expansion in our trade. In 1793 the export of British manu- 
factures had been to the value of ;z{^i 4,7 00,000 ; in 1801 it 
had risen to ;,^24, 4 00,000. Similarly, at the earlier date we 
had re-exported ^5,400,000 of foreign and colonial goods; 
in 1 80 1 the figures had tripled, and were recorded as 
;^i 7,1 00,000. The number of British ships at sea had risen 
from 16,000 to 18,000, in spite of all French privateering. 



THE ENGLISH IN INDIA. 9 

If we had failed to prevent the establishment of the French 
domination on the continent of Western Europe, France had 
failed quite as signally in her attempts to demolish our com- 
mercial and maritime supremacy. During the heat of the 
war we had grasped the control of Southern India, by putting 
down Bonaparte's ally, Tippoo Sultan of Mysore (1799); the 
" Great Proconsul " Wellesley was, at the very moment of the 
Treaty of Amiens, watching his opportunity to lay the founda- 
tions of British power in the central and northern regions of 
Hindostan by interfering in the affairs of the Mahratta states, 
a project which he was to take in hand before the year 1802 
had expired. 

Yet, even when all these facts are taken into consideration, 
there can be no doubt that Addington and his cabinet were 
fully justified in concluding peace with France. War is such 
a fearful burden, and its chances are so incalculable, that no 
government which is offered an honourable and not unprofit- 
able peace should hesitate to accept it, merely because there 
is some prospect of obtaining yet better terms at some future 
date. The one mistake made was in thinking that Bonaparte 
was sincerely anxious for an equitable pacification, and wished 
to dwell beside us as a quiet neighbour. But the statesmen 
of 1 80 1 could not know his character as we know it after a 
study of his whole career ; they were quite excusable if they 
were deceived by his plausible verbiage, and allowed him 
some credit for the magnificent and praiseworthy sentiments 
which he professed. 



CHAPTER IT. 

TRI STRUGGLE WITH BONAPARTE : (l) THE NAVAL WA51. 

1803-1806. 

The peace from which so ranch had been hoped was to 
endure for no more than thirteen months. But in March, 
1802, well-nigh all men on this side of the Channel believed 
that the struggle with France had reached its end, and thought 
that a period of rest, economy, and retrenchment had set in. 
Britain was to turn to account the complete sovereignty of 
the seas and the new Indian empire which she had gained, 
and, by a careful development of trade and manufactures, 
was to free herself from the burden of her vast national debt. 
The army and navy were reduced with a haste that was to 
produce much trouble ere the year was out. So great were 
the expectations that were entertained of the prosperity that 
was to result from the peace, that when the French ambas- 
sador arrived in London, his carriage was actually drawn 
through the streets by the populace, and a general illumination 
testified to the national joy. Great numbers of English at 
once embarked on continental travel — a pleasure which had 
been denied them for more than eight years, and for which 
many of them were to pay dearly in 1803. 

Bonaparte's objects in coming to terms with England had 
been twofold. He wished for an interval of quiet in which to 
prepare for that assumption of regal power which he had 
already determined to carry out. But he also wished to 



BONAPARTE'S ANNEXATIONS IN 1802. 11 

recover the lost French colonies, and to gain time to re- 
build the shattered French navy, which in 1802 
had been reduced to less than forty ships of the policy ^^ ^ ^ 
line. In a few years he intended to create a new 
fleet, which should be able to dispute with that of Britain the 
mastery of the seas. Moreover, observing the enthusiasm with 
which peace was greeted in England, he fancied that our 
government would wink at several new aggressions which he 
was contemplating on the continent. Rather than renew the 
war, he imagined that the weak Addington would submit to 
many humiliations. In this respect he wholly misconceived 
the situation ; he underrated the wariness and national pride 
of his opponents to an absurd degree. 

Only a few months had elapsed after the Treaty of Amiens 
had been signed, when the First Consul began to take in hand 
some measures which were certain to irritate pj.gsh 
England. In September he annexed to France annexations 
Piedmont and the rest of the continental terri- ^ ranee. 
tories of the King of Sardinia, though that unfortunate monarch 
had given him no provocation whatever. Parma was at the 
same time appropriated, though compensation was in this case 
given to the dispossessed Bourbon duke. Soon after Bonaparte 
sent 30,000 men into Switzerland, and overturned there a 
government which was not sufficiently subservient to his 
interests. When England protested against this high-handed 
action, he merely replied that she had no concern with con- 
tinental affairs, since there was no mention of Piedmont or the 
Helvetic Republic in the Treaty of Amiens. On his part he 
began to declaim against our government because Malta had 
not yet been evacuated : we had agreed to restore the island 
to the Order of the Knights of St. John, but since they had not 
yet been reorganized, our troops were still in possession. How- 
ever, actual preparations for their departure had begun when 
the First Consul's action caused them to be suspended. 

Even before these matters of foreign policy had come to a 



12 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

head, Bonaparte had created much ill feeling in England by 
J |. , making some extraordinary demands from our 

British government. He proposed that we should expel 

Government, f^.^^ q^j- shores the princes of the old royal family 
of France and certain other refugees, a request for the violation 
of English hospitality which was naturally refused. He also 
made an astonishing demand for the suppression of certain 
English newspapers and pamphlets, wherein his conduct and 
policy were being discussed with the usual freedom of political 
papers. When Lord Hawkesbury made the natural reply that 
in England the press was free, and that it was not our wont to 
expel foreign exiles who had done nothing against our laws, 
the First Consul pretended to regard himself as outrageously 
insulted (August 17, 1802). 

His ill-will was notably manifest in the regulations against 
English trade which he maintained. He utterly refused to 
H t'l't t ^^S^ ^^y commercial treaty, and caused crushing 
Eni^lish duties to be laid on English goods, not only in 

traa«. France, but throughout the territories of her 

vas;sal republics. He also sent agents and spies all over Great 
Britain and the British empire, to discover our exact military 
and commercial resources. The final outbreak of wrath 
against him on this side of the Channel was largely caused 
by the publication of the papers of one of his agents, General 
Sebastiani, which were filled with elaborate plans for putting 
the French again in possession of Egypt, and for undermining 
English trade in the Levant. 

It was no wonder that in the winter of 1802-3 the English 
ministers made up their minds that another war was probably 
The British ^^ sight. They resolved to retain a firm hold on 
ambassador Malta, and to delay the surrender of the Cape of 
Good Hope, Pondicherry, and such other French 
possessions as had not yet been given back. When Parliament 
met in March, the prime minister announced that the army and 
navy, instead of being further reduced, would require certain 



RUPTURE WITH FRANCE. 13 

additions. It was the news of these measures which led 
Bonaparte to show his hand : he summoned the EngUsh 
ambassador, Lord Whitworth, to the Tuileries, and, in the 
presence of a large assembly, delivered an angry harangue at 
him. He accused the English cabinet of violating the Treaty 
of Amiens with deliberate treachery, cried that they should 
have war if they wanted it, " but if they are the first to draw 
the sword, I shall be the last to put it back into the scabbard. 
Woe to those who violate treaties; they shall answer for the 
consequences to all Europe " (March 13, 1803). 

After such a scene the Addington cabinet felt that war was 
inevitable ; they began hurriedly to refit our dismantled fleet, 
and to re-embody our disbanded battalions. £no-iand 
Bonaparte, on the other hand, began to move declares 
troops from inland France towards the shores of ^^^' 
the Channel, and set naval preparations afoot in all his ports, 
especially in the new arsenal of Antwerp. Some negotiations, 
half-hearted on both sides, dragged on for nearly two months 
more ; but when the First Consul insisted that we should not 
only recognize the legality of his doings in Italy and Switzer- 
land, but also at once evacuate Malta, it was obvious that there 
could be no yielding. On the 12th of May, 1803, our 
ambassador left Paris, and the declaration of war on France 
promptly followed. 

It is probable that at first Bonaparte had merely intended to 
bully and hector the British Government into condoning his 
annexations in Italy, and had assumed his aggres- Seizure of 
sive airs in the full confidence that Addington and English 
his cabinet would give way. When they refused 
to yield an inch, and met his menaces with a declaration of 
war, he showed all the irritation of a man deceived in his ex- 
pectations. His first act was a sign of uncontrollable vexation, 
and not the least among his numerous violations of international 
law. He seized all the English tourists and travellers who 
were passing through France for pleasure or business, and put 



14 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

them in confinement as if they had been prisoners of wan 
They were about 10,000 in number, and Bonaparte actually 
had the cruelty to keep them confined during the whole of the 
war, so that those who had not escaped or died were still in his 
hands when he was overthrown in 1814. Another sign of his 
wrath was that he persistently continued to accuse the British 
Government of hiring assassins to attempt his life — ascribing all 
conspiracies against him, whether the work of royalist fanatics 
or discontented republicans, to English gold. 

Thus began the second half of the great French war — the 
struggle with Bonaparte as opposed to the struggle against the 
principles of the Revolution. The two episodes are one in so 
far as they are regarded as constituting the great test-struggle 
between England and France, the last serious effort made by 
a foreign power to destroy our commercial and maritime 
supremacy by force of arms. Napoleon in this respect only 
continued the work of the Jacobins, and the short Peace of 
Amiens was a break so insignificant that we need haidly regard 
it at all. Up to 1802 the game had been a drawn one, and 
the adversaries had only paused for a moment to draw breath 
before resuming their duel. 

But the character of the struggle was profoundly modified 
by the fact that from 1803 onwards we were no longer 

fighting against the principles of the Revolution, 
the contest ^"^ against a military despot of unparalleled 
between genius, who had fought his way up from the 

FrMce ^" obscure position of a lieutenant of artillery to 

that of the arbitrator of Europe, and had showed 
his ability to direct the anarchic energy of revolutionary 
France to his own ends. France under Bonaparte only 
resembles France under Robespierre in the unscrupulous 
vigour of her assaults on her neighbours. After having long 
posed as the prophetess of licentious liberty, she now becomes 
the apostle of despotism ; and England was therefore able to 
appear once more as the protectress of the liberties of Europe 



BONAPARTE'S SCHEMES. 1$ 

against a tyrant, abandoning her previous position as the 
defender of order against anarchy, which, she had occupied 
since 1792. The RepubHcans had talked of freeing the 
masses in England from the government of a corrupt 
oligarchy : Bonaparte made no pretence of any such philan- 
thropic aim, and merely spoke of destroying the power and 
wealth of Great Britain because she stood in his way. All 
through his career it is most notable how a hatred for this 
country pervades and explains all his widespread schemes. 
From the day when, as a young artillery officer, he drove 
our garrison out of Toulon, to the day when he saw the 
broken columns of his Old Guard rolling down the hillside 
of Waterloo, it was always England that stood before him 
as the enemy of his schemes and the final object at which 
his blows were levelled. His invasion of Egypt in 1798 had 
been aimed against our Indian empire, and we had foiled 
him. His policy after the rupture of the Peace of Amiens 
had always before it as its ultimate end the maritime and 
commercial ruin of England. He strove to accomplish it 
first by open invasion and maritime war, later by the more 
circuitous method of compelling all Europe to unite in the 
league of the " Continental System " and join him in his boy- 
cotting of English trade. Ail his wars with Austria, Prussia, 
and Russia were to a great extent indirect blows at the insular 
enemy whom he could not attack on her own soil, for all the 
confederacies against him were fomented and consolidated 
by the application of English gold. To win the fight of 
Friedland or Wagram meant to him that he could force 
another state into adopting a commercial policy hostile to 
England, not merely that he could seize territory or impose 
vassalage on the defeated foe. The final end of all his plans 
was to crush Great Britain, and the other episodes of the war 
were but means to that end, only necessary because England's 
continental allies must be subdued before England herself 
could be touched. 



l6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Bonaparte had many points in his favour while conducting 
the war against Great Britain. He had all the advantages 
that come from unity of purpose and despotic power. The 
ministers of a constitutional state are clogged with the re- 
sponsibility to Parliament and the nation for all their actions. 
They have to face the criticism of the opposition and the 
comments of the press. Moreover, the policy of a cabinet 
of ten or a dozen men must necessarily be less coherent and 
self-consistent than that of a single autocrat. When each 
side had formed a scheme, the ruler of France could provide 
for its speedy and silent accomplishment ; while the English 
expeditions were too often canvassed in parliament and 
divulged by the press before they had even left our shores. 
Bonaparte was his own finance-minister and his own com- 
mander-in-chief; while in England the views of the economist 
and the soldier were too often clashing in the cabinet, with 
the result that the one spent more than he intended, though 
the other was always being checked by insufficient supplies. 
Several times, as we shall see, Wellington was nearly starved 
out in Spain, while the ministry were positive that they were 
spending too much rather than too little on his army. Nothing 
of the sort could happen in France, where the same hand held 
the sword and the purse-:5trings. Bonaparte, too, in his deal- 
ings with his allies, could ptcss his demands as a master; 
England had great difficulty in getting even part of her 
requirements carried out by confederates who knew that they 
were serving her as well as themselves, and could therefore 
get what terms they liked out of her. 

The great war of 1803-1814 falls into two main parts. 
During the first, Bonaparte aimed at fighting England on the 
seas, and his fundamental project was the actual invasion of 
our shores. This period lasted for somewhat over two years, 
and ended in 1805, when we stirred up against him enemies 
who kept his army occupied in Central Europe, and destroyed 
his fleet at Trafalgar. During the second and longer section 



BONAPARTE AT BOULOGNE. 17 

of the Struggle, Bonaparte abandoned his invasion scheme, 
frankly ceased to dispute the mastery of the seas, and strove 
to wear down England by cutting off the sources of her 
commercial prosperity by his " Continental System," a scheme 
hopeless from the first, and entailing on him in the end the 
desperate hatred, not only of the governments, but of the 
peoples of every European state. He finally fell because he 
had taught every patriot in every land to look upon him as 
a bitter and irreconcilable personal enemy. 

At the first outbreak of the new war in 1803, it would be 
hard to say which of the two belligerents displayed the 
greater energy. Bonaparte marched 120,000 
veteran troops to the coast of the Channel, and Roulog-n? 
set every dockyard in France and Holland to 
work, in order to build men-of-war to equal the English fleet 
in numbers. He also constructed vast numbers of large flat- 
bottomed boats, in which he intended to convey his army 
across the straits under cover of his war fleet. His own 
headquarters were placed at Boulogne ; to right and left his 
regiments lay at every port between Ostend and St. Valery. 
He was thoroughly set upon trying that invasion of our island 
which the Directory had abandoned as impracticable after 
the defeats of Camperdown and St. Vincent. A fog, he 
thought, might cover his crossing, or a gale might drive away 
the British squadron which observed him, or a lucky concen- 
tration of his own ships might for a moment give him the 
command of the Channel. But in some way or another he 
was determined that the attempt should be made. His troops 
were trained to get on board their flat-bottomed boats with 
extraordinary speed and order, and he boasted that the whole 
army could embark in France and disembark in England 
within forty-eight hours — a feat wholly impossible. 

On this side of the Channel the outbreak of war had roused 
wild anger against Bonaparte for cheating us out of the long- 
desired peace from which so much had been expected. With 

C 



i8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

anger was mixed a strong feeling of apprehension when the 

magnitude of the preparations at Boulogne be- 
Feeling in , rr.i •, . r 

England— came known. The excitement was far greater 

The volun- than that which had been felt during the critical 
tecrs ... 

year 1798. While the ministers were planning 

how best the military forces of the United Kingdom could 

be drawn out to meet the projected attack, the nation itself 

came to their aid by forming many hundreds of volunteer 

corps. In a few months 347,000 volunteers were under arms, 

besides 120,000 regulars and 78,000 militia. The new levies 

were very raw, and insufficiently supplied with cavalry and 

artillery. But their numbers were so great and their enthusiasm 

so genuine, that, with the regulars to stiffen their resistance, it 

cannot be doubted that they would have given a good account 

of Bonaparte, if ever he had succeeded in throwing the whole 

of his 150,000 men ashore in Kent and Sussex. 

The spirit of the nation was displayed with equal clearness 

by the demand made for the return of Pitt to the helm of the 

state. Addington, whose efforts to organize the 

Pitt returns national defence were considered too slow and 
to office. 

ineffective, retired from office in the spring of 

1804, and Pitt's advent to power was signalized by an outburst 
of redoubled energy and an unsparing expenditure of public 
money. Every month that Bonaparte waited before dealing his 
threatened blow made the project of invasion more chimerical. 
The longer the First Consul studied the problem of trans- 
porting his host across the straits on his light craft, the more 

difficult it began to appear. Finally, after many 
Modification . ^ . ■ -u- ^u -u c j 

of Bona- months spent in weighing the chances tor and 

parte's in- against the possibility of invading England before 
vasi p . j^^ j^^^ secured control of the Channel, Bona- 
parte seems to have come to the very wise and prudent 
conclusion that it was too hazardous an undertaking. Instead 
of placing his army on board of his transports and flat-bottomed 
boats and launching them on to the narrow seas, he resolved 



NAPOLEON PROCLAIMED EMPEROR. 19 

to bring up his war fleet to convey them across. But to collect 
his line-of-battle ships from the scattered ports where they were 
being blockaded by the English squadrons was in itself a very 
hazardous and difficult task. He deferred the operation till 
1804, and meanwhile took in hand a piece of domestic policy 
whose conclusion the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens had 
interrupted. 

He thought the time was ripe for the open restoration of 
monarchy in France. A royalist conspiracy against his life 
being detected, he took the opportunity which it 
gave him to demand a higher and firmer position assumes the 
in the state than that of First Gonsul. Acting on title of 
his secret orders, the French senate requested him 
to assume the title of Emperor — the monarch of so large a 
realm and the controller of so many vassal states was too great 
(he thought) to be a mere king. Bonaparte at once accepted 
the offer, which seemed to fall in with the aspirations of the 
whole nation. Jacobinism was wholly dead, and there was a 
real and widespread enthusiasm for the ruler who had not 
merely smitten the foreign enemies of France, but had restored 
order within her boundaries, reorganized her finances, and 
brought back to the ruined country a considerable measure of 
internal prosperity (May 18, 1804). Bonaparte compelled the 
Pope to come to Paris to assist in his coronation : it was a 
grand if somewhat garish pageant, which went to the hearts of 
the few surviving members of the old republican party, and 
marked the complete ascendency of despotism in France. At 
its culminating point, Bonaparte, taking the crown out of the 
hands of Pius VH., who had been intending to place it on 
his head, crowned himself instead, and then placed another 
diadem on the brow of his wife, Josephine Beauharnais. For 
the future law ran in France in the name of the " Emperor 
Napoleon," though the state was officially spoken of as a 
republic for two or three years more, in spite of its new mon- 
archical form (December 2, 1804). 



30 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In the autumn of 1804, Napoleon began to take in hand 
his new scheme for concentrating a naval force in the Channel 
g 1 J to cover the passage of his army. He hoped to 

declares war unite at Boulogne all the scattered French 
with Spain, squadrons, and to join to them the navies of 
Holland and Spain. The latter power had just been forced by 
him, much against her will, to join the coalition. Charles IV., 
being summoned to supply the emperor with either ships or 
money, undertook to pay France an enormous subsidy, trusting 
thereby to escape an open breach with England. But the 
Addington cabinet got early news of the treaty, and promptly 
seized the frigates which were bringing the treasure from America 
(October 5), whereupon Spain a few months later declared war 
on England (December 12), and openly joined Napoleon. 

This event immensely enlarged the area of naval war : 
English fleets had now to watch every port of Western Europe, 
Th block- f^'oi^ the Texel in the North Sea to Genoa in the 
ade of the Mediterranean, lest some detachment of the enemy 
a le ee s. flight escape, and, by relieving other blockaded 
squadrons, concentrate for the moment a force which should 
outnumber our ships on the all-important belt of sea between 
Boulogne and the Kentish coast. Everything then depended 
on the untiring vigilance of our admirals, who had to keep up 
an endless watch on the hostile ports, and whose weather-beaten 
ships could never retire for a moment from the wearisome 
blockade. 

Napoleon at last thought out an elaborate and ingenious 

scheme for drawing together his scattered naval strength. 

T^T 1 , The initiative was to lie with Villeneuve, the 
Napoleon s ' 

naval admiral commanding at Toulon, whose squadron 

sc erne. ^^^ being watched by a somewhat smaller English 

fleet under the ever-watchful Nelson. He was to slip out of 
his port at the first opportunity, and, evading Nelson, to make 
for the Straits of Gibraltar. Picking up the Spanish ships at 
Cartagena and Cadiz, where the English blockading vessels 



VILLENEUVE AND NELSON. 21 

ivrere very few, he was then to strike out westward into the 
Atlantic, as if intending to deal a blow at the English West 
Indies. Nelson, the emperor rightly thought, would follow 
them in that direction. But after reaching the Caribbean Sea, 
the Franco-Spaniards were to turn suddenly back and make 
a dash for Brest, where lay a large French squadron, watched 
by Admiral Cornwallis and the English Channel fleet. If all 
went well, Villeneuve could raise the blockade of Brest, for, 
counting the ships in that port, he would have some sixty 
vessels to Cornwallis's thirty-five. Nelson meanwhile would 
be vainly searching the West Indian waters for the enemy who 
had reached the Channel. Cornwallis must retire or be 
crushed, and the command of the narrow seas must pass for 
some weeks into French hands. The invasion could then be 
accomplished. 

Much of this scheme of the emperor's was actually carried 
out. On March 29, 1805, Villeneuve ran out of Toulon in 
a heavy gale, which had blown Nelson far to ^.j. 
the south. He made for the Straits of Gibraltar, escapes to the 
while the English admiral was vainly looking for ^^^^^ Indies, 
him off Sicily, under the impression that he had sailed for 
Egypt. Fortunately for us, the Spanish fleet was in such a 
disgraceful state of disrepair and disorder, that no ships from 
Cartagena and only six from Cadiz joined the enemy, and 
Villeneuve had to start on his dash across the Atlantic with 
only eighteen vessels instead of the thirty on which he had 
counted (April 9, 1805). On the 13th of May they reached 
Martinique. After staying some weeks in the West Indies, 
that the knowledge of his arrival there might get abroad and 
mislead Nelson, the French admiral started homeward on the 
4th of June. His great opponent meanwhile had only received 
full information as to the route taken by the French as late as 
May 9, and started for the West just a month later than the 
French, and with only eleven line-of-battle ships. He reached 
Barbados on the very day that Villeneuve turned back towards 



22 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Europe, vainly sought him among the islands for a few days, 
and then, acting on his own unerring inspiration, turned back- 
ward and made sail for Europe. He was now only nine days 
behind the French, though he had started with a full month 
to the bad. 

Meanwhile all Napoleon's elaborate plans for bringing 
Villeneuve to Brest, long ere his departure from the West 

transpired, were wrecked by the chances of war 
Calder's • • 

action off ^"^ ^^^ activity of the English Admiralty. A 

Cape Finis- fast-sailing English brig sighted the allied fleet 
moving eastward soon after it left the West 
Indies. Making an extraordinarily swift passage, this little 
vessel brought the news to Portsmouth on the 7 th of July. 
Realizing its tremendous importance. Lord Barham, the First 
Lord of the Admiralty, gave prompt orders that a squadron 
should be sent out into the Atlantic to intercept Villeneuve. 
This was done with such splendid speed that on July 23 
fifteen vessels under Sir Robert Calder met the approaching 
enemy just as he arrived in sight of Europe, off the Spanish 
cape Finisterre. After an indecisive action, in which they 
lost two ships, the allies ran into Ferrol instead of sailing for 
Brest : Calder's appearance had checkmated them. 

Nelson, too, was now back in European waters ; on July 20, 
three days before Calder's action, he reached Gibraltar. All 
the British squadrons being now within touch of 
Nelson— ^^^^ Other, Bonaparte's scheme had practically 
Villeneuve failed. But Villeneuve made its failure more 
Cadiz. disastrous than it need have been. Having pro- 

cured reinforcements at Ferrol, he then moved 
to Cadiz to pick up the remainder of the Spanish fleet. After 
joining them, he had thirty-three ships of the line ; but outside 
Cadiz lay Nelson with his own and Calder's squadrons, twenty- 
seven vessels in all. Villeneuve refused to put out, rightly 
thinking that his superiority in numbers did not compensate 
for the inferior quality of his crews. But nevertheless he had 



BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR. 23 

to fight. His master the emperor had heard with disgust and 
wild anger that the fleet which was to give him the command 
of the Channel had appeared at Ferrol instead of at Brest, 
and had allowed itself to be turned from its goal by Calder's 
less numerous squadron. In his vexation Napoleon sent his 
admiral a letter taunting him with cowardice and bad seaman- 
ship, and informing him that a successor had been sent to 
supersede him. 

To vindicate his courage, the unfortunate Villeneuve deter- 
mined to offer battle to Nelson before he was displaced from 
command. The fleets met off Cape Trafalgar, 
on October 21, 1805, with the result that might J^Trai^lg-ar 
have been expected. Nelson's vessels in two 
columns burst into the midst of the ill-formed Franco-Spanish 
line, and silenced or captured ship after ship by their splendid 
gunnery. The allied rear and centre were annihilated before 
their van could tack and come into action. Nineteen of 
Villeneuve's ships, including his own, were taken, and one 
blew up; only a remnant escaped into Cadiz. But Nelson 
was mortally wounded by a musket-ball in the thick of the 
fight. He lived long enough to hear that the victory was 
complete, but expired ere night. His work was done, for 
Napoleon never again dared to send a large fleet to sea or 
to risk a general engagement. Had Nelson's indomitable soul 
sustained his frail body for a few more years, there would 
have been little but weary blockading work for him to do. 
He had effectually put an end to all Napoleon's invasion 
schemes, by destroying more than half the French and Spanish 
ships which were to have swept the Channel and laid open the 
shores of Kent. 

The turning-point of the great naval campaign of 1805 had 
been Calder's indecisive action off" Cape Finisterre. The 
moment it had been fought and Villeneuve had turned south- 
ward. Napoleon had mentally given up his idea of crossing 
the Dover Straits, and turned his attention to Continental 



24 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

affairs. It was high time, for Pitt had been stirring up 
against him a formidable coaHtion. The old 
new coalition monarchies of Europe had been greatly displeased 
against by Napoleon's annexations in Italy and elsewhere. 

Francis II. of Austria bitterly resented his constant 
intrigues with the minor German states, and as emperor had a 
special grievance against him. For in 1804 Bonaparte had 
violated the terntory of the empire in the most outrageous way. 
He had sent a regiment of horse across the Rhine and kid- 
napped at night a Bourbon prince, the Duke of Enghien, whom 
he then tried and shot on a false accusation of being concerned 
in an assassination plot. Such a violation of international law 
and common morality had provoked open protest from Austria 
and Russia. These two powers were already negotiating for an 
alliance against France, when Pitt stepped in to offer them 
enormous subsidies and the active aid of the English fleet. 
It was hoped that Prussia too would join the coalition ; but 
the ministers of Frederick William III. pursued a mean and 
double-faced policy, haggling with France and Austria at 
once, and offering themselves to the highest bidder. They 
finally helped neither side, but pounced on the electorate of 
Hanover, with Napoleon's consent, and preserved an ambiguous 
neutrality. 

The French autocrat was not unaware of the Austro-Russian 

alliance. When he heard of Villeneuve's failure, he dropped 

for ever his cherished invasion scheme, and, sud- 

Austerlitz— denly turning his back on the sea, declared war on 

Austria sues hjg Continental enemies before they were ready 
for peace. . . 

for him. The troops from the camp of Boulogne 

were hurried across France by forced marches, and hurled into 

Germany, long before the Russians were anywhere near the 

field of operations. The Austrians alone had to bear the first 

brunt of the war ; their imbecile commander. Mack, allowed 

them to be surprised before they were concentrated, and was 

himself captured at Ulm with nearly 40,000 men before the 



AUSTERLITZ AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 25 

war was many days old (October 20). This disaster left the 
Austrians so weak that they could not even save Vienna 
from the invader ; the wrecks of their army had to fall back 
and join the Russians, who were only now coming on the 
scene. A month later (December 2, 1805) the French and the 
allies met in a decisive battle at Austerlitz, a Moravian village 
eighty miles north of Vienna. Here the unskilful generalship 
of the allies exposed them to a bloody defeat, which cost them 
more than 30,000 men. The Austrians now cried aloud for 
peace, which Napoleon only granted on very hard terms. He 
took away Venice and the other Austrian lands south of the 
Alps, and united them to Lombardy, so forming a " Kingdom 
of Italy," of which he wore the crown. The Tyrol was given 
to Bavaria, whose ruler had sided with Napoleon. 

Moreover, Francis II. was forced to give up the time-honoured 
title of " Holy Roman Emperor " which his ancestors had held 
since 14^8, and with it his place as nominal 
suzerain of the other German states. Most of << Holy 
the minor princes between the Rhine and the Roman ^^ 
Elbe were forced to replace their nominal depen- The Confede- 
dence on the Habsburg emperor by a very real ration of the 
servitude to Bonaparte. He formed them into 
the " Confederation of the Rhine " under his own presidency, 
and compelled them to place their armies and treasures at his 
disposal (July to December, 1806). 

The news of the defeat of Austerlitz is often said to have 
been the death-blow of Pitt. This statement is only true in a 
geneial way, and the theatrical last words which 
are put into his mouth, " Roll up the map of pj^j. 
Europe; we shall not want it again for twenty 
years," are not authentic. But there is no doubt that he was 
bitterly disappointed at the failure of the great coalition which 
he had raised against Napoleon. His death was really due to 
the long strain of anxiety during the projected invasion of 
England, and to his carelessness about his health, of which he 



26 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was as reckless as he was about his private fortune. He died, 
a broken man, though aged no more than forty-six, on January 
23, 1806. But his pohcy Hved after him, and his successors 
were to carry it out to a successful end, though only after eight 
more years of desperate war. 



I t; > 



CHAPTER III. 

THE STRUGGLE WITH BONAPARTE : (2) THE CONTINENTAL 
SYSTEM THE PENINSULAR WAR — WATERLOO. 

1806-1815. 

With the battles of Trafalgar and Austerlitz, followed by the 

death of Pitt, the first stage in the great struggle with the 

French emperor came to an end. There was no xt i » 
^ . . Napoleon s 

further talk of the mvasion of England, nor did second line 

Bonaparte attempt any more to dispute the o^PO"cy. 
dominion of the seas. But his mind was none the less set on 
the humiliation of England, though his methods of assailing 
her became more indirect. He had now in his eye the estab- 
lishment of a domination over the whole of Europe. The first 
step towards the systematic reduction of his neighbours to 
subjection was the establishment of the " Confederation of the 
Rhine," whose members were from the first his slaves. The 
second was the planting out of his relatives as rulers of the 
smaller states of Europe. In 1806 his brother Joseph was 
made King of Naples, from which the imbecile Bourbon house 
were driven out, because they had dared to show sympathy with 
Austria during the war of 1805. A few months later came the 
crowning of his brother Lewis as King of Holland — the Bata- 
vian republic being ruthlessly swept away, without any option 
being given to the Dutch of declaring their wishes as to the 
government of their land. Bonaparte began to talk of himself 
as the " successor of Charlemagne," an ominous saying for 



28 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Germans and Spaniards, since the great Frankish emperor's 
dominions had extended as far as the Elbe and the Ebro. 

Meanwhile Pitt had found no competent successor in 
England. No statesman commanded sufficient authority with 

the people or the Parliament to take his place, 
ministry The result that followed was a coalition ministry. 

formed in The V/hig party, excluded from office for more 
* than twenty years, were invited to take their share 
in the governance of the realm. Charles James Fox and 
Sheridan took office, allied to Lord Grenville, long a faithful 
supporter of Pitt, and to many other Tories, among whom 
Addington was numbered. 

Even the way in which Bonaparte had broken the peace of 
Amiens had not wholly cured Fox of his idea that peace with 

France was possible. The invasion scheme being 

Futile nego- foiled, he thou2:ht that the emperor might be willing 
tiationswith ^ , , a / ^ .u r^ -n 

Napoleon. to come to terms. Accordmgly, the , Grenville- 

Fox cabinet entered into negotiations with the 
enemy in 1806. Napoleon at first used smooth words, but 
the conditions on which he offered peace were humiliating, 
considering that England had hitherto not only held her 
own, but had swept the French fleet from the seas and 
occupied a great number of French colonies. To his great 
regret, Fox was compelled to acknowledge that an honourable 

and reasonable peace was not procurable. Soon 
Fox— ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ (September, 1806), surviving his 
Break-up of great rival Pitt by less than a year. The coalition 
the coalition . . ^ ju- r .uu. j 
The Tories ministry survived him a tew months, but resigned 

return to jn March, 1807. The two elements in it were at 

variance, and the Whigs made the refusal of 
George IIL to allow them to introduce Catholic Emancipation 
their excuse for leaving office. A cabinet of pure Tories 
succeeded them, in which the leading spirit was Spencer 
Perceval, though the premiership was nominally held by the 
aged Duke of Portland. 



NAPOLEON CONQUERS PRUSSIA. 29 

Not many months after the Austrians had yielded to their 
conqueror, and the Russians had retired sullenly towards the 
east, the third great Continental power was 
destined to feel the weight of Napoleon's sword, g-oade^d into 
The weak and selfish ministers of Prussia had declaring 
stood out from the coalition of 1805, and had sold p^nce 
themselves to Napoleon for the price of the 
annexation of Hanover — the patrimony of the old King of 
England. But no sooner was Austerlitz won and the allies 
crushed, than Napoleon began a series of systematic slights and 
insults to Prussia. He considered that, by making her bargain 
with him, she had sold herself to be as much his vassal as were 
Holland or Bavaria The numerous insults which he inflicted 
on his ally Frederick William HI. culminated in an extra- 
ordinary piece of bad faith. He had covenanted in 1805 that 
Prussia should keep Hanover : but, negotiating with England in 
1806, he calmly proposed to the English ministers to take back 
that electorate and restore it to George HI. as one of the terms 
of peace. This came to the ears of the Prussian court, and 
led to such an explosion of wrath that with great haste and 
hurry Frederick William declared war on France, without 
giving himself time to prepare his army or to purvey himself 
allies. He hastily tried to conciliate England, whose king he 
had robbed of Hanover, and to patch up an alliance with 
Alexander of Russia, who was still eager to fight, to reverse 
the verdict of Austerlitz. Both England and Russia came to 
terms with the Prussians, but not in time to give her practical 
assistance during the opening days of the war. 

Advancing beyond the Elbe in order to overrun the lands of 
the princes of the " Confederacy of the Rhine," the Prussians 
found themselves suddenly assailed on the flank „ .., ^ 
by the French army, which Bonaparte had secretly Jena and 
concentrated under cover of the Thurindan -^"^rstadt. 
Forest. The Prussian troops had hitherto enjoyed a very 
high reputation, won in the splendid victories of Frederick the 



30 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Great. But the accurate drill and stern discipline which they 
inherited from him, and their undoubted courage in the field, 
did not save them from a fearful disaster. Guided by aged 
and incompetent generals, who had not studied Bonaparte's 
methods of attack, they were caught before they could 
concentrate, and defeated piecemeal at the battles of Jena and 
Auerstadt (October 14, 1806). When Napoleon had once got 
them on the run, he pursued them so fiercely that division after 
division was outmarched, surrounded, and compelled to lay 
down its arms. The king escaped with only 12,000 men, the 
wreck of a host of 150,000 veterans, to join his Russian ally. 
Of all the disasters which befel the powers of the Continent 
when they measured themselves on the field of battle against 
Bonaparte, this was the most sudden and humiliating. Only 
a few weeks after the declaration of war the Prussian monarchy 
was ruined. 

After entering Berlin in triumph, the victor pressed on to 
the east to meet the Russians. His campaign against them 

was far more difficult and sharply contested. In 
Eylau and the first pitched battle, fought at Eylau in a 
The treaty of blinding February snowstorm, amid frozen lakes 
Tilsit— and pine woods, the emperor, though not beaten, 

membered.' f^il^^ to drive the enemy from the field. He 

retired for a space into winter quarters ; but when 
the spring of 1807 came round he pushed forward again, and, 
after much sharp fighting, crushed the Russians at Friedland 
(June 14). The czar then asked for peace; meeting him on 
a raft on the river Niemen, the boundary of Russia and Prussia, 
Napoleon concluded with him the Treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 
1807). The terms of this peace were far harder on Prussia, 
who had been friendly with France since 1795, ^^an on Russia, 
who had thrice during the last ten years struck hard at her. 
Frederick William was stripped of half his dominions, partly 
to help in making a new kingdom called " Westphaha " for 
Napoleon's brother Jerome, partly to erect in Poland a vassal 



THE BERLIN DECREES. 31 

State called the " Grand Duchy of Warsaw," destined to act as 
a French outpost to the east. A crushing fine was laid on the 
dismembered monarchy, and French garrisons were perma- 
nently established in its chief strongholds. Russia, on the 
other hand, was left intact, and only compelled to sign an 
agreement to follow Napoleon's policy of attacking England 
by striking at her trade. 

Since Villeneuve's incapacity and Nelson's vigilance had 
ruined Bonaparte's invasion scheme, another set of designs 
against Britain had been maturing in the ^j^^ Berlin 
emperor's mind, for her ruin was still the final and Milan 
end of all his policy, and the wars with Conti- screes, 
nental powers were no more than episodes in the struggle. 
There was a way in which victories like Austerlitz and 
Friedland could be turned to account. If all English trade 
with the states of the Continent could be prohibited, England 
— Napoleon thought — must grow poor and perish. The 
enforcement of this policy begins with the " Berlin Decrees," 
issued soon after Jena, in the autumn of 1806, and was 
continued by the Milan Decrees of 1807. These ordinances 
were among the most ingenious devices of the emperor's fertile 
brain ; but, unlike most of the others, were decidedly imprac- 
ticable from the first. Every one was familiar with the idea 
of a naval blockade, wherein the power supreme at sea places 
ships before the harbours of its foe and prohibits the ingress or 
egress of his merchandise. But Bonaparte's idea was the 
reverse of this : he would institute a land blockade — soldiers 
and custom-house officers should be planted all round the 
coasts of France and France's vassals and allies, to prevent 
English vessels from approaching the shore, and so to exclude 
her manufactures and colonial goods from the whole Continent. 
The Berlin Decrees declared the British Isles to be in a state 
of blockade — a curious inversion of the actual fact. No 
subject of France or of France's vassal states was to purchase 
or possess any British merchandise. No vessel of a neutral 



32 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

power — for example, the United States of America— which had 
touched at a British port or a port of the British colonies, was 
to be admitted into a Continental haven. All goods of 
British manufacture were to be seized, whenever and in whose- 
soever hands they were found, and confiscated to the crown. 
These rules were at once imposed on Holland, Italy, Spain, 
and Germany, and after Tilsit Russia also was cajoled into 
accepting them. In all Europe, only Turkey, Portugal, 
Sweden, and the small island kingdoms of Sicily and Sardinia 
were not included in their effect. 

The new Tory government in England promptly took up 
the challenge. By the " Orders in Council " of 1807 the whole 
Th "Orders ^^ ^^^ coasts of France and France's allies were 
in Council " declared to be in a state of strict blockade, and 
ot 1007. ^Y[ vessels— even those under neutral flags — which 

left or entered them were declared good prizes of war, unless 
they could prove that since leaving home they had touched at 
a British port. This was a sort of ironical parody of Bona- 
parte's Berlin Decrees : obviously if both parties carried out 
their threats, there could be no foreign trade at all in conti- 
nental Europe. 

The main difference between the two sets of Decrees was 
that from the first England had the power to put her edict in 
Eff t fth ^^^^^' ^^'hile Bonaparte's was a dead letter not 
'•Continental worth the paper on which it was written. He 
System. could not force his subjects and allies to give up 

the countless articles of luxury and necessity which they had 
been accustomed to draw from Britain or Britain's colonies. 
From the first the proscribed goods contrived to penetrate into 
Europe despite his orders. They came up the Danube from 
Turkey, they crept into Spain from Portugal. Smuggling 
became scientific, and was practised on a gigantic scale. From 
Malta, Sicily, Gibraltar, and the Channel Islands vessels laden 
with contraband goods sailed every night to throw ashore their 
wares in Italy and France. Napoleon never succeeded in 



THE EFFECTS OF THE BERLIN DECREES. 33 

excluding our goods, but he succeeded in making the price of 
them to his unfortunate subjects or alHes three or four times 
the natural amount, for the smuggler's risk of capture had to be 
highly remunerated. Every time that a German or Spaniard 
had to pay two shillings a pound for his sugar, or to substitute 
chicory for his accustomed coffee, he was reminded that the 
Continental System was the cause of his privations, and asked 
himself what benefit his country was drawing from the French 
alliance to compensate him for his personal inconvenience. 

As the years passed by, and Napoleon's demands grew more 
exorbitant, the nations chafed more and more against his 
tyranny, till there followed the great final explosion of wrath in 
18 1 3. But in 1807 this was as yet far off, and the full weight 
of Bonaparte's exactions was unrealized. Meanwhile the suffer- 
ing brought on England was comparatively insignificant : we 
had still the undisturbed control of the Indian, Chinese, African, 
and North American trade to draw on, even though our com- 
merce with Europe was restricted. Our ports and warehouses 
were full, and though we could not readily use some of our old 
markets, yet the stagnation of which Napoleon had dreamed 
was far from setting in. Such were the effects of the long- 
pondered scheme which the emperor had devised, a scheme 
which he carried out with a ruthless disregard for the interests 
of his subjects and allies, and which w^as to draw him first into 
the costly Spanish war of 1808, and then into the disastrous 
Russian war of 18 12. 

One of the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit had formu- 
lated a plan of the emperor's for combining the Russian aYid 

Danish fleets, in order to dispute the command of ^ . 

oCizurc of tn6 
the Baltic with England^a device which Czar Danish fleet 

Paul had tried once before in 1801. This was ~?^P^r 

ditions to 
easily foiled by the second English attack on Buenos 

Copenhagen (October, 1807). It was as com- Ayres and 

pletely successful as Nelson's feat had been in the 

earlier war, and the whole Danish fleet was carried off to 



34 ENGLAND IN THE NINFTEENTH CENTURY. 

England. This naval success, however, hardly compensated 

for the failure of two other expeditions, from which much had 

been expected. One was an attempt to seize the Spanish 

colony of Buenos Ayres in South America, which ended in the 

capitulation of the incompetent General Whitelock with the 

whole of his 8000 men — a force too small for the errand on 

which it was sent. The other was a mismanaged expedition to 

Egypt, which led to nothing, and was finally abandoned with 

some discredit. The English army was indeed at this moment 

at the lowest point of its reputation. Unlike the navy, it had 

failed in most of the tasks on which it had been sent : only in 

India had it been uniformly successful. It was not till our men 

got leaders worthy of their merits in Wellesley and Moore that 

they were able to show their real value, and prove that they 

were more than equal to the boasted veterans of Napoleon. 

Their chance was now close at hand. 

In 1808 Bonaparte conceived the iniquitous idea of seizing 

the crown of Spain, and substituting for its wretched King 

-T I Charles IV. a monarch of his own choosing. 

Napoleon ° 

seizes Charles was an obedient ally, but he was so 

Portugal. thoroughly incompetent that his assistance did 
not count for much : the emperor imagined that a nominee of 
his own would prove a more profitable helper. But the way in 
which he set about the conquest of Spain was characteristically 
treacherous and tortuous. He drafted a large army into the 
Peninsula under the excuse that he was about to attack Portu- 
gal, almost the last state in Europe which had not yet accepted 
the Continental System. Declaring that " the House of Braganza 
had ceased to reign," he poured his forces into Portugal, whose 
Prince-regent fled over seas to Brazil without attempting to 
offer resistance. But while one French army under General 
Junot had marched on Lisbon, large detachments followed 
behind, and occupied, under the guise of friends, the Spanish 
capital Madrid, and the fortresses of Barcelona, Pampeluna, 
and San Sebastian. 



NAPOLEON ATTACKS SPAIN. 35 

The Spaniards suspected no harm till Napoleon showed his 
hand by a disgraceful piece of kidnapping. King Charles IV. 
and his son, Prince Ferdinand, a worthless and 
useless pair, had been engaged in a bitter quarrel Bonaoarte 
with each other. Bonaparte summoned them proclaimed 
both to visit him at Bayonne, just across the Cnam^ 
French frontier, in order that he might arbitrate 
between them and heal their quarrel. They were foolish 
enough to obey this insolent mandate : when they arrived, 
however, he put them both in confinement, bullied them into 
signing an abdication, and sent them prisoners into France. 
He then took the astounding step of appointing his own brother 
Joseph Bonaparte as the successor of Charles IV., and the 
numerous French troops scattered through Spain everywhere 
proclaimed the usurper. The populace of Madrid rose, but 
was put down with ruthless severity, and Joseph made his 
appearance in the capital at the head of a strong guard. 

Bonaparte had believed that centuries of misgovernment and 
disorganization had so broken the spirit of the Spanish nation 
that his impudent and treacherous scheme could 
be carried to a successful end. He was soon of^fhe "^^ 
undeceived: the Spaniards, in spite of the decay Spaniards — 
of their ancient power and wealth, and the incom- Capitulation 
petence of their rulers, still possessed a healthy 
sense of national pride : they were, moreover, the most obstinate, 
fanatical, and revengeful race in Europe. Though deprived of 
their princes, and confronted with French garrisons treacher- 
ously installed in their fortresses, they sprang to arms in every 
province. In most quarters their raw levies were easily beaten 
by the French veterans, but a series of fortunate chances 
enabled the insurgents of the South to surround and capture 
at Baylen an army under General Dupont, which had forced its 
way into Andalusia (July 20, 1808). This was the first serious 
check which the French arms had sustained since Napoleon had 
been proclaimed emperor, and it had important results. Joseph 



36 



ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 



Bonaparte and his troops had to abandon Madrid, to retire 
beyond the Ebro, and to ask aid from France. 



Ferrnh 



-sks, 



'Bhi 



•^Coru'nna 



■^% 



^Toulouse 



,Gal 



,^*iii(i)v%«te„»fr; 



port 01 



^^^'^ 



^Vitt^-Ha^ Pampeluna" 
'stile 









jBusaco 



^Barcelona: 



^ 



/^ LiTtet 

Torres f'edra$ 






\Badajos 



LValencia 



LISBOl 



Vincejji 



-:^:^''' 



Almanza 



/a n d 



Cadiz 
1^ 7^ 



^>Jiws* yggiCa rtag'ena: 

SPAIN & POrJlGAl 

1803-1814. 



Meanwhile a second disaster followed hard on the heels of 
the battle of Baylen. The English government had sent a 
_, small army to Portugal, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, 

an officer well known for his gallant services in 
India. This force routed at Vimiera (August 21, 
1808) the French troops under Junot, which had 
occupied Lisbon. The defeat was so crushing 
that the enemy might have been pursued and 
driven into the sea without much further trouble. But Wellesley 
was superseded by a senior officer, Sir Hew Dalrymple, who 
arrived from England on the night of the battle. This cautious 
general admitted the French to terms, and by his Convention 
of Cintra (August 30, 1808), Junot's troops were allowed to 
quit Portugal with bag and baggage, and to return to France 
by sea. 



in Spain — 
Battle of 
Vimiera — 
The Conven 
lion of 
Cintra. 



BATTLE OF CORUNNA. jy 

Two such checks to the French arms called Bonaparte him- 
self into the field. He hurried over the Pyrenees more than 
200,000 of the veterans who had conquered at 
Austerlitz and Jena, and hurled himself upon the Spain— Sir 
Spaniards. The latter were as inferior incumbers John Moore's 
as in discipline and military spirit : their ill-organ- 
ized bands were scattered in all directions, and Napoleon 
entered Madrid in triumph, and replaced his brother on the 
throne (December 4, 1808). He hoped to complete the con- 
quest of the Peninsula by crushing the English army from 
Portugal, which was now advancing towards him under Sir 
John Moore — Dalrymple and Wellesley had been recalled to 
answer before a court-martial for the Convention of Cintra. 
The emperor moved in his troops from all sides to surround 
the 25,000 English, but Moore executed an admirably timed 
retreat, and drew the bulk of the French army after him into 
the inhospitable mountains of Galicia. 

While vainly pursuing the English, Bonaparte suddenly 
received news which changed all his plans : a new war was 
imminent in his rear. Austria had now had three 
years in which to recover from the humiliation of leaves Spain 
Austerlitz, and had completely reorganized her —Battle of 
army. She was chafing bitterly against Napoleon's 
dictatorial ways and the restraints of the " Continental System." 
Seeing the French busy in the Spanish war, she gladly listened 
to the persuasions of the Perceval cabinet, who offered English 
aid for a fresh attack on the old enemy. It was the news of this 
danger in the rear which forced Bonaparte to quit Spain, taking 
with him his imperial guards, but leaving the rest of his troops 
behind him. Marshal Soult, to whom the pursuit of Moore 
was handed over, followed the English to the sea : at Corunna 
the retreating army, suddenly turned to bay, inflicted a sharp 
defeat on Soult, and embarked in safety for England (January 
16, 1809). Moore fell in the moment of victory, after having 
taught his followers that the French could be outmanoeuvred, 



38 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

outmarched, and beaten in the open field. His troops had 
suffered much from the mountains and the bitter weather, but 
little from the overwhelming force of pursuers. 

The Austrian war of 1809 was the most formidable struggle 

in which Bonaparte had yet engaged. The enemy fought 

better, and were far better managed than in 1800 

Esslin^ *and ^^ ^^°5 ' ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^° ^^^ advantage of the fact 
Wagram — that 200,000 of the best troops of France were 

Marriage of i^^ked up in the Peninsula. The Archduke 
Napoleon. ^ 

Charles, Austria's great general, long held Napo- 
leon in check, and even forced him to recross the Danube 
after the battle of Essling. It was not until after many months 
of bitter fighting that the invadtrs at last gained a decisive 
battle at Wagram (July 6, 1809). The fortune of war might 
perhaps have been turned against the French by the help of 
England ; but the Perceval cabinet most unwisely wasted a fine 
army by sending it into the swamps of Holland to besiege 
Flushing, and make a vain demonstration on Antwerp. Forty 
thousand men, who might have overrun North Germany, or 
recovered Madrid, accomplished nothing more than the capture 
of Flushing, and suffered so severely from marsh-fever that 
they had at last to be withdrawn without having aided the 
Austrians in the least. Francis II., meanwhile, was forced after 
Wagram to sign the peace of Schonbrunn, by which he gave up 
to Napoleon his whole sea-coast in Dalmatia and Illyria, part 
of Poland, and — bitterest of humiliations — the hand of his 
daughter Maria Louisa (October 14, 1809), To make this 
marriage possible, the French emperor callously divorced 
Josephine Beauharnais, the amiable if frivolous spouse who had 
shared his fortunes for fourteen years. If he hoped to bind 
Austria firmly to him by the match, Bonaparte was woefully 
deceived. 

While the Austrian war was being fought out, the French 
made little progress in Spain. They were now being opposed 
not only by the Spanish levies, but by a new English army 



BATTLE OF TALAVERA. 39 

headed by Wellesley, who had been sent back to the Peninsula 
when it was recognized that he had been in no 
wise responsible for the Convention of Cintra. dri en f 
The year 1809 was very glorious to the English Portugal — 
arms: Wellesley first drove Marshal Soult out ^alavera 
of Portugal, surprising him at Oporto, and forcing 
him to flee northward with the loss of all his guns and 
baggage. Then marching into Spain, he joined a Spanish 
army under General Cuesta, and defeated at Talavera (July 28, 
1809) the French army which covered Madrid. He might 
even have won back the capital but for the mulish obstinacy 
of his colleague, and the gross misconduct of the Spanish 
troops, who could not be trusted except behind entrenchments. 
Talavera was won entirely by the 23,000 English, their allies 
refusing to advance even when the battle was won. After this 
heart-breaking experience Wellesley resolved never to co- 
operate with a Spanish army again, and to trust entirely to his 
own troops. 

Meanwhile the news of Talavera caused the French troops 
from all parts of the Peninsula to concentrate against the little 
English army, which had to beat a cautious retreat to the 
Portuguese frontier. No result had been gained from the 
incursion into Spain, save that the troops had learnt to look 
with confidence on their leader, who received as his reward for 
his two victories the title of Wellington, under which he was to 
be so well known. 

After the peace of Schonbrunn had been signed, Bonaparte 
commenced to pour reinforcements into Spain, and even spoke 
of going there himself " to drive the British leopard 
into the sea." Ultimately, however, he sent instead ^^ Torres 
his ablest lieutenant. Marshal Massena, with 100,000 Vedras "— 
fresh troops. The arrival of these new legions gave retreat 
fresh vigour to the invaders : they overran most 
of Southern and Eastern Spain, and only failed when they were 
confronted in Portugal by the indomitable army of Wellington. 



40 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The year 1810 was for the EngUsh commander the most trying 
period of the whole war. Massena marched against him in 
overpowering strength, and all that was in his power was to 
play a slow and obstinate game of retreat, turning back on 
occasion, as at the very skilfully fought battle of Busaco (Sep- 
tember 27), to check the heads of the French columns. In 
this way he led the enemy on to the gates of Lisbon, in front of 
which he had erected a very elaborate system of fortifications, 
the celebrated " Lines of Torres Vedras," extending in a triple 
range all across the peninsula on which the Portuguese capital 
stands. Massena knew nothing of the lines till his army was 
brought up by running into the first of them (October, 18 10). 
He found them so strong that he dared not risk an attack on 
them, and halted irresolute in their front. Wellington had 
expected this, and had prepared for the contingency by sweep- 
ing the whole countryside bare of provisions, and causing the 
peasantry to retire into Lisbon. Masse'na's host starved in 
front of the lines for five months, vainly hoping for aid from 
Spain. But Wellington had cut their line of communication 
with Madrid by throwing numerous bands of Portuguese militia 
across the mountain roads, and no food and very few fresh 
troops came to help the invaders. When his army was almost 
perishing from famine, Massena was constrained to take it back 
to Spain, suffering so dreadfully by the way that he only brought 
back two-thirds of the men whom he had led into Portugal 
(March, 181 1). 

The retreat of the French fron before the lines of Torres 
Vedras was the turning-point of the Peninsular War, and in 
'• Guerilla " some degree the turning-point of Napoleon's whole 
warfare in career, for Massena's march to the gates of Lisbon 
bpain. marked the last and furthest point of his advance 

towards the conquest of Western Europe. After this the 
French were always to lose ground. The emperor kept an 
enormous army in the Peninsula, but he could never wholly 
master it. No single region of Spain would remain quiet 



CHARACTER OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. 41 

unless it was heavily garrisoned ; the moment that troops were 
withdrawn it blazed up again into insurrection. The Spanish 
levies were very bad troops in the open field, and were beaten 
with the utmost regularity, even if they had two men to one 
against the French. But they never lost heart, in spite of their 
defeats ; as was remarked at the time, " A Spanish army was 
easy to beat, but very hard to destroy." It dispersed after a 
lost battle, but the survivors came together again in a few 
days, as self-confident and obstinate as ever. The regular 
troops gave the French far less trouble than the " Guerillas " — 
half armed peasantry, half robbers, who lurked in the moun- 
tains, refrained from attacking large bodies of men, but were 
always pouncing down to capture convoys, cut off small isolated 
detachments, and harass the flanks and rear of troops on the 
march. They so pervaded the country that the transmission 
of news from one French army to another was a matter of 
serious difficulty ; a message was never certain to get safely to 
its destination unless its bearer was protected by a guard of 
five hundred men. The French habitually shot every guerillero 
whom they caught, and in return the insurgents murdered every 
straggler that fell into their hands. The drain on the strength 
of the army of occupation caused by this lingering and bloody 
war of retaliation was appalling. It was not for nothing that 
Bonaparte called the Peninsular War " the running sore " that 
sapped his strength. 

Meanwhile the emperor was apparently at the very zenith 
of his power during the years 1 809-11. His annexations 
grew more reckless and iniquitous than ever. He patent of 
appropriated Holland, expelling his own brother the "French 
Louis Bonaparte, because he showed some regard "^P^^®- 
for Dutch as opposed to French interests, and had ventured to 
plead against the " Continental System." Soon after, he annexed 
the whole German coast line on the North Sea, and even the 
south-west corner of the Bnltic shore. 'This again was done in 
the interest of the Continental System ; the Hanseatic towns 



42 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had not shown sufficient enthusiasm in carrying it out, so he 
absorbed them and cut short several neighbouring principaHties. 
By this last expansion the " French Empire " stretched from 
Lubeck to Rome, for the pope had already been evicted from 
the " Eternal City " in 1809. In addition, Bonaparte personally 
ruled the kingdom of Italy, and the Illyrian provinces on the 
Adriatic. Spain, the Rhine Confederation, Switzerland, the 
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and Naples were his vassals. Prussia 
was occupied by his garrisons since 1806. Austria, Russia, 
Denmark, and Sweden were his more or less willing allies. 
The English had no friends save in the weak kingdoms of 
Sicily, Sardinia, and Portugal, and among the still weaker 
Spanish insurgents. 

Meanwhile, even in this dark time, England continued to 
carry out without following the policy that Pitt had left behind 

him. The conduct of affairs had passed into the 
ooIk:^ hands of second-rate statesmen like Perceval and 

Lord Liverpool, but no hesitation was shown, 

though the National Debt continued to rise with appalling 

rapidity, and though Napoleon seemed more invincible than 

ever. The war in Spain was giving England a glimpse of 

success on land, though her armies had still to act upon the 

defensive, and to yield ground when the enemy came on in 

overwhelming numbers. Nation and ministers alike considered 

themselves irrevocably pledged to the war, and comforted 

themselves with the thought that Napoleon's empire, built upon 

force and fraud, and maintaining itself by a cruel oppression of 

the vanquished, must ultimately fall before the simultaneous 

uprising of all the peoples of Europe. 

The year 181 1 had seen the French in Spain checked 

„ , in their endeavours to resume the invasion of 

Battles of ^ , ^ ^ / . i 1 1 • 

Fuentes Portugal. Massena s last approach towards its 

d'Onoro and frontier was stopped dead at the battle of Fuentes 

D'Onoro (May 5). Eleven days later, a bloody 

fight at Albuera turned back Marshal Soult, who liad 



NAPOLEON'S EMPIRE IN iSlI. 



43 




44 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

endeavoured to drive off a part of the English army that lay 
further to the south, blockading the fortress of Badajoz (May 
1 6). The French could advance no further, while Wellington, 
on the other hand, was not yet strong enough to be able to 
contemplate the invasion of Spain. It was expected in the 
Peninsula that Napoleon himself would soon appear, to finish 
the task which his lieutenants had proved unable to carry out. 
But though he recalled Massena, he neither came on the scene 
himself, nor sent any appreciable reinforcements to Spain. He 
already saw a new war impending over him, and had turned all 
his attention to it. 

Russia had not been completely crushed in 1807 : her 
armies had been beaten, but only after a gallant struggle, and 
. it was from a sincere desire for peace, and not 

and the from mere necessity, that the Czar Alexander 

Continental had signed the Peace of Tilsit, and accepted the 
Continental System. Five years' experience of 
that intolerable burden had convinced him that the friend- 
ship of Napoleon was dearly bought by accepting it. His 
realm was losing more by the complete suspension of its 
foreign trade than it could lose by open war with France. 
The great landed proprietors, whose timber, hemp, and wheat 
had once found a ready market in England, and now could 
not be sold at all, were furious that they should be ruined to 
please Bonaparte. Urged on by threats of a conspiracy such 
as had overthrown his father Paul in 1801, Alexander yielded 
to the pressure of his nobles, and broke with France. 

This led to Napoleon's great invasion of Russia in 181 2 — a 

grandiose scheme, doomed from the first to failure, because its 

ivT . . framer had not taken into consideration the diffi- 

IMapoleon s 

Russian culties involved in moving and feeding a host of 

campaign. 600,000 men in a thinly-populated land, destitute 
of roads and great towns. The Russians retired before the 
invaders, removing all stores of food, and causing the peasantry 
to migrate along with the army. Half the horses of Bonaparte's 



THE BURNING OF MOSCOW. 45 

army had perished, and a third of his men had been starved or 
had deserted before the enemy indulged him with a serious 
battle. He defeated them at Borodino (September 7) and 
entered Moscow, but only to find it deserted and empty. A 
great fire destroyed the city soon after his arrival, and he was 
driven to order his starving army to retreat on Lithuania to 
take winter quarters. But the first frosts of November slew off 
the exhausted soldiery like flies ; the Russians harassed the 
melting host on his way, till it broke up in utter disorganization, 
and Bonaparte finally fled to Paris to organize new forces, 
leaving his lieutenants the task of bringing back the 30,000 
miserable survivors of the '* Grand Army," who had struggled 
out from the Russian snows. 

In Spain, too, 181 2 was a fatal year for the French arms. 
Wellington, having received more troops from England, and 
having thoroughly re-organized the Portuguese 
army, resolved to make a bold push into Spain. Ciudad 
Early in the year he took by storm the two great Rodri^o and 
frontier fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo (January, 
19) and Badajoz (April 6), striking so swiftly that the armies 
of succour could not come up in time to save them. This 
rapid success was bought at the cost of many lives, for the 
assaults had to be delivered before the fire of the defenders 
had been subdued ; but time was all-important, and the result 
justified the lavish expense of blood. Having secured the 
frontier of Portugal, Wellington pressed forward into Spain, 
and won the first great victory in which he assumed the 
offensive, at Salamanca (July 22, 18 12). By a 
sudden master-stroke he crushed in the flank of salam^ca 
Marshal Marmont, and " routed 40,000 men in 
forty minutes." This victory led to the recovery of Madrid 
and the flight of Joseph Bonaparte from his capital. But, 
evacuating the other provinces of Spain, the French armies 
massed themselves to check Wellington's further advance, and 
before their superior numbers the English had to fall back 



46 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

on the Portuguese frontier. All southern Spain, however, 
had been cleared of the invaders, who now only held the 
northern half of the Peninsula. 

The next year (1813) saw the complete ruin of Napoleon. 
When the Russians advanced into Germany, the whole 
Battle of nation rose in arms to aid them. Prussia alone, 
Leipzig— Fall though she had been mutilated and robbed and 
P ' oppressed with French garrisons, put 200,000 
men into the field. The Emperor once more appeared at 
the head of a vast army, bringing up his last reserves, huge 
drafts from the army of Spain, and hundreds of thousands of 
conscripts. But his troops were no longer the veterans of 
Austerlitz, and his enemies fought with a fury of which he had 
never before had experience. He gained a few successes in 
the opening weeks of the struggle, but when his own father-in- 
law, the Austrian Emperor, plunged into the struggle, the odds 
became too heavy, and at the battle of Leipzig (October 16-18, 
18 13) he was overwhelmed by numbers, and suffered a 
crushing defeat, in which more than half his army was slain 
or captured. The enemy pursued him energetically, gave him 
no time to rally, and entered France at his heels. They had 
at last learnt to turn his own methods of war against him, and 
knew that a beaten foe must not be allowed time to rally. 
Crossing the Rhine at midwinter, the allies pushed deep into 
France. Bonaparte, with the wrecks of his army, made a 
desperate resistance, but had not a shadow of a chance of 
success. In spite of his skilful manoeuvring, and of the 
splendid endurance of his troops, he was forced nearer and 
nearer to Paris. At last, while he was engaged with a mere 
fraction of the allied host, the bulk of it marched past his 
flank and stormed the lines in front of the French capital 
(April 4, 1 8 14). On the news of the fall of Paris, Napoleon's 
own marshals refused to persist in the hopeless struggle, and 
compelled their master to lay down his arms and abdicate. In 
the rage of the moment the emperor swallowed poison, but his 



ABDICATION OF NAPOLEON. 47 

constitution was too strong, and he survived to fall into the 

hands of the victors. They sent him to honourable exile in 

the Tuscan island of Elba, whose sovereignty was bestowed 

upon him. 

While the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians had entered 

France from the north-east, another army of invasion had been 

pouring into the southern departments. Welling- „ , 

■ r ^ , , • 1 Battle of 

ton s campaign of 18 13 was the most glorious and Vittoria— 

successful of all his achievements. In early Wellington 

enters 
spring he massed his troops on the north-western France. 

frontier of Portugal, and marched rapidly up the 

valley of the Douro. The French armies, scattered in distant 

cantonments, could not unite in numbers sufficient to give him 

battle till he had pushed them as far as Vittoria, at the very 

foot of the Pyrenees. When they did turn to fight, he beat 

them, intercepted their line of retreat, captured all their guns 

and baggage — the proceeds of the six years' plunder of Spain — 

and drove them headlong into France (June 21, 181 3). After 

having defeated a month later a last endeavour of Marshal Soult 

to force his way back into the Peninsula (July 27-30, 1813) 

at the battles of the Pyrenees, Wellington captured the great 

frontier fortresses of San Sebastian and Pampeluna. He then 

crossed into France, and spent the winter and the early spring 

of 18 14 in forcing Soult back over the rivers and hills of 

Beam and Gascony. Just before Napoleon's fall, one division 

of his army captured Bordeaux, while he himself with the main 

body evicted Soult from Toulouse, after the last and one of the 

bloodiest fights of the Peninsular War (April 14). When the 

news of peace came, he was in full military occupation of eight 

French departments, and the two largest towns of Southern 

France. 

After the fall of Paris, and the abdication of Napoleon, the 

allied powers placed on the throne the representative of the 

long-exiled house of Bourbon, Louis XVIII. — the best choice 

perhaps that they could make, yet in itself an unsatisfactory 



48 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

experiment. Louis, though not destitute of a certain shrewd- 
Restoration "^^^' ^^^^ elderly, and a confirmed valetudinarian ; 
of Louis he left the conduct of affairs to ministers whose 

unwise actions made the French complain that 
"the Bourbons had learned nothing and forgotten nothing" 
— they behaved, in short, as if the whole Revolution and its 
consequences had passed over their heads unnoticed. Mean- 
while the allies met in congress at Vienna to redistribute 
Europe and to make an end of the relics of the Napoleonic 
regime. There were many conflicting interests, for the desires 
of Prussia, Russia, and Austria crossed each other on a dozen 
points, and a long period of friction was inevitable before a 
settlement could be reached. But the powers commenced to 
disarm, and thought nothing less probable than a new French 
war. 

England alone was unable to disband her troops or dis- 
mantle her navy. She was still engaged in a struggle which 

had broken out in i8i 2. One of the consequences 
can war. ^'^ ^^ Continental System and the " Orders in 

Council " had been to inflict grave hardships on 
the trade of the United States, the one great neutral power in 
the world. France and Great Britain had done them equal 
damage, but it was natural that the Americans should resent 
more the action of the power which lay nearer to them and 
domineered over the seas. They were specially vexed at the 
harsh exercise of the right of search, and the frequent impress- 
ment of British seamen found serving on American ships, whose 
cha.ige of nationality our Government refused to recognize. To 
these sources of irritation was added a notion that while 
England was locked in her death-grapple with Bonaparte, it 
would be easy to overrun and annex Canada. Hence it came 
that the United States declared war in the summer of 181 2. 
This " stab in the back," as the English called it, had no effect 
whatever on the general course of the European war. The 
small garrison of Canada, gallantly aided by the local miliiia, 



THE AMERICAN WAR OF 1812. 49 

beat off every attempt to invade the great colony, and even 
compelled two small American armies to surrender. It did 
not prove to be necessary to distract troops from Europe for their 
aid. On the other hand, the English navy had an unpleasant 
surprise when, on three separate occasions, the large and admi- 
rably-handled American frigates took or sunk British ships 
of slightly inferior force in single combat — a thing which 
no French, Spanish, or Dutch vessel had ever accomplished. 
The American ships had to be hunted down by superior 
numbers — a fact very galling to the pride of their opponents. 
A considerable amount of damage was also done to our mer- 
cantile marine by American privateers. On the other hand, a 
strict blockade sealed up Boston and all the other ports of the 
United States, whose commerce was for the moment absolutely 
annihilated. When Napoleon was at last disposed of, the 
British Government began to pour Wellington's Peninsular 
veterans into America. One expedition took Washington, the 
capital of the United States, though another sent against 
New Orlean'S was beaten back with fearful loss. But before 
serious pressure had been applied, a peace was signed at Ghent 
(December 24, 181 4), which left all matters— territorial ard 
other — ^just as they had been before 181 2. The end of Na- 
poleon and his Continental System had removed the cause of 
war, and both parties gladly "brought it to an end. 

Meanwhile, in March, 181 5, a new and unexpected crisis 
had arisen in Europe. While the envoys at Vienna were 
engaged in parcelling out the spoils of Napoleon, jyjanoleon 
they received the unwelcome news that the ex- escapes from 
emperor had escaped from Elba, landed in ^' 
Provence, and called his old followers to arms. The Bourbons 
had made themselves so profoundly unpopular that no one 
would fight for them ; whole regiments and brigades tore ofif 
their white cockades and came to join the great adventurer. 
In a few days he was at the head of 100,000 men. Louis XVIII. 
fled to Flanders, and ere he had been gone more than a few 



50 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

hours Napoleon was again installed in the Tuileries. He 
trusted that his sudden success might impose on the allies, and 
that the dissensions which had divided the Congress of Vienna 
might keep them from united action. But he was woefully 
mistaken. Every state in Europe promptly declared war on 
him. 

Seeing that his only chance lay in swift action, Napoleon 
dashed into Belgium with all the troops he could collect, some 
B ttl f 130,000 men. He had then to face a Prussian 
Ligny and army under Marshal Bliicher, and a composite 
Quatre Bras, j-^j-^^g Qf English Hanoverians and Dutch, which 
had been placed under the command of Wellington. The 
Austrians and Russians were still far off. The campaign of 
1815 was settled in six days. Bonaparte struck at the point 
where Wellington's left joined Bliicher's right, intending to 
thrust himself between them and defeat them piecemeal. His 
first stroke against the Prussians was successful : he drove 
Bliicher with heavy loss from his position at Ligny (June 16), 
while his lieutenant Marshal Ney detained the leading divisions 
of the English army by an indecisive action at Quatre Bras. 
Then, leaving a force under Grouchy to pursue Blucher, he 
turned his main body against Wellington, who offered him 
battle on the position of Mont St. Jean, eight miles south of 
Brussels (June 18). 

For seven hours Wellington held his own on his chosen 
ground. Though his Dutch and Belgian troops melted from the 

field, his steady English and German battalions 
J Waterloo stood out nobly against the pounding of the 

French artillery, and the furious charges of the 
emperor's numerous horse. The British squares were still un- 
broken when in the afternoon the Prussian army began to 
come on the field. Blucher had evaded Grouchy, and loyally 
marched to the aid of his colleague. Seeing himself likely to 
be caught between two fires, Bonaparte tried a last desperate 
stroke : he flung 5000 veterans of his Imperial Guard on 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 5 1 

Wellington's right centre, hoping to break through his enemy's 
line ere the Prussian pressure became intolerable. But the 
deadly fire of the British infantry mowed down the advancing 
columns before they could reach the head of the slope ; and 
when the Guard was seen reeling to the rear, the whole French 
host broke up in hopeless confusion and fled. They could not 
be rallied till they had reached the very gates of Paris, and 
Napoleon's doom was sealed. He had to abdicate a second 
time as soon as the allies appeared in front of his capital, and 
when he surrendered himself to the British, was despatched, not 
to an honourable exile in Europe, but to the lonely island of 
St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, where he had to eat out his 
heart for six years in enforced idleness, and finally died of 
cancer in 1821. 

There was nothing to be feared from France, where the 
weak rule of the restored Bourbons gave their neighbours no 
trouble for some years. So Europe was able to 
settle its accounts at the Congress of Vienna The Con- 
without further disturbance. Great Britain was Vienna— 
paid handsomely, but by no means lavishly, for Acquisitions 
the part that she had taken in the long struggle Britain, 
against the Corsican usurper. In Europe she 
received two strongholds to make firm her hold on the 
Mediterranean — the invaluable strategical point of Malta, and 
the Ionian Islands further to the east. She also kept the 
small island of Heligoland, in the North Sea, which had served 
as a great smuggling depot during the Great War. In America 
we retained the Dutch colony of Demerara on the Southern 
Continent — the tropical region now known as British Guiana ; 
in the West Indies we took from the French St. Lucia and 
Tobago. In the Indian Ocean the valuable Isle of Mauritius 
(Isle de France) was ceded by France, and Holland gave up 
her settlement of the Cape of Good Hope, which served as an 
admirable halfway house to our Indian possessions, and has 
been the nucleus of our South African empire. The English 



52 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Government might have asked and obtained still more ; but it 
was thought that by securing complete domination in the com- 
mercial and manufacturing world during the war, Britain had 
gained so much that she need not be over-exacting. Valuable 
colonies by the dozen were handed back to France and 
Holland, with an almost extravagant liberality. 

The settlement of Continental Europe concerned us com- 
paratively little, save in one point. Holland and Belgium were 

^, formed into a new " Kingdom of the Netherlands," 

The re- ^ . . 

settlement of which was expected to prove a firm ally of Britam 

Europe. ^^^ ^ barrier against the northern extension of 

France. For the rest, Austria took Venice and Lombardy; 

Prussia received broad grants on the Rhine and in Saxony ; 

Russia absorbed Napoleon's " Grand Duchy of Warsaw." The 

petty despots of Central and Southern Italy — the Pope, the 

King of Naples, and the rest — secured an undeserved return 

to their long-lost realms. France was confined within her old 

boundaries of the year 1792. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON TO THE GREAT REFORM BILL. 

1815-1832. 

The England which emerged from the great war of 1793-18 15 
was a very different country from the England of the days 
before the French Revolution. In all her history ^ng-iand 
there has never been a period of twenty-two years after the 
into which so many changes have been com- ^^^^ ^^^' 
pressed. Not merely in matters political and economic, but in 
all social matters^in literature, in national feeling, in everyday 
thought and life — there was a profound alteration visible. For 
the most part the change had been for the better : the great 
war had exercised a most wholesome and sobering effect on 
the national character. Few men had watched the atrocities of 
the French Revolution, or lived through the long period of 
suspense in 1802-1805, when foreign invasion was daily ex- 
pected, without taking a profound impression from those times 
of storm and stress. In the eighteenth century we often hear 
complaints of the want of patriotism and public spirit in Great 
Britain : no such reproach could be made to the generation 
which had fought through the great French war. The slack- 
ness and cynicism of the eighteenth century had 

Improve- 
been completely lived down. Political morality ment in 

had been enormously improved : in the latter political 

morality, 
years of the war Whig and Tory had learnt to 

work together for the common national good despite of mere 



54 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

party interests. In 1806-7 a Tory majority had accepted a 
Whig ministry because it seemed for the moment desirable : in 
the following years the Whigs had refrained from captious 
opposition to the later Tory cabinets — though of course they 
had not ceased to criticise their measures. There were none 
of the selfish and immoral combinations of cliques and groups 
which used to disgrace the eighteenth century. Parliamentary 
corruption of the bad old sort — the buying of members by hard 
cash or gifts of sinecures — had practically disappeared. States- 
men suspected of a want of private integrity could no longer 
come to the front. 

The improved standard of political morals only reflected the 
general rise in the social morality of the nation. There was a 
growing feeling against drunkenness, foul language, 
moralitv gambling, and open profligacy, which had been 

looked upon with such a tolerant eye thirty years 
before. Nothing shows it better than the deep unpopularity of 
the Regent, George, Prince of Wales, who carried far into the 
nineteenth century the evil manners of the eighteenth. The 
contempt and dislike felt for him by the majority of the nation 
would never have been felt to such an extent by the older 
generation. 

The revival of religious earnestness, which had begun with 
Wesley and the Methodists, was enormously developed by the 
influence of the war. The blasphemous antics of 
* the French Revolutionists had shocked thousands 
of Englishmen into a more serious view of life, and twenty 
years of national peril had put flippancy at a discount. Promi- 
nent men who made no secret of their earnest religious con- 
victions were no longer liable to be sneered at as enthusiasts or 
condemned as fanatics. Ail through the period the Low 
Church or Evangelical party was working hard and gaining an 
increasing hold on the nation. The religious indifferentism of 
the eighteenth century had disappeared. 

Nothing shows the general improvement of the nation better 



BRITAIN IN 1815. 55 

than the higher tone of its literature. To the men of 1820 the 
coarse taste of the men of 1750 had become in- 
tolerable. Many will remember Sir Walter Scott's ifterature" 
story of his friend who read over in old age the 
books which had seemed amusing fifty years back, and found 
that they only raised a feeling of shame and disgust. It was a 
fact of a very typical sort that Scott himself was by far the 
most popular poet of his own day ; men preferred his healthy, 
vigorous, patriotic strains to the work of his younger contem- 
poraries, Byron and Shelley : though both were greater poets 
than the author of Mannion and the Last Minstrel^ the one 
was too morbid and satanic, and the other too hysterical and 
anarchic for the taste of the time. 

Turning to matters of a more tangible kind, we find as great 
a difference in the England of 1792 and of 1815. The popu- 
lation and resources of the country had s:rown in r 

^ ^ Increase in 

those twenty-two years in a measure for which population 
previous history could afford no parallel. The ^ wealth. 
distribution of the newly-gotten wealth was far less satisfactory, 
and numerous social problems had grown up which were bound 
to force themselves upon public attention the moment that the 
stress of war was removed. In population, the United Kingdom 
had increased from 14,000,000 to 19,000,000 souls, in spite of 
the considerable waste of life in the foreign war and in the Irish 
troubles of 1797 8. 

But the rise in trade and commerce had been far more 
startling. Our exports had more than doubled: in 1792 they 
had stood at ^27,000,000 ; in 1815 the figures Growth of ' 
were ^58,000,000. The imports had gone up trade and 
between the same years from ^19,000,000 to *^°"^"^^^c^* 
^32,000,000. Still more astounding was the rise in the 
national finances. The ordinary peace revenue had produced 
^^19,000,000 in 1792 : the same heads of taxation, as opposed 
to the extra war-revenue, brought in ^45,000,000 in 181 5. It 
was this marvellous expansion of our resources alone which 



56 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had enabled us to last out the Napoleonic struggle. If, as 
generally happens during war, the national resources had 
decayed rather than multiplied under the stress of heavy tax- 
ation and constant alarms, we should have been exhausted long 
before Bonaparte had run through his full career. We have 
spoken already of the main factor of our prosperity, the mono- 
poly of the carrying trade of the world, which we had won by 
our naval victories, and which our enemy's insane " Continental 
System " had done much to confirm to us. The other great 
element in the growth of the wealth of Britain had been the 
immense development of our internal manufactures. Even 
before 1792 the development of machinery in our factories 
had already begun, and we were rapidly asserting a superiority 
over our neighbours. The war completed our ascendency. 
While every other land in Europe was repeatedly overrun by 
hostile armies, Great Britain alone was free to work out her 
new discoveries without interruption. Many of her industries 
were notably fostered by the lavish expenditure on our army 
and navy : the demand for iron and steel, cloth and cotton, for 
military purposes had been enormous. Our factories had been 
working for continental paymasters also : even Napoleon him- 
self, it is said, had been compelled to secretly procure from 
Yorkshire looms the cloth for the coats of the army which took 
the field in 181 3, so entirely had continental manufactures 
failed him. 

There was a general and very natural expectation in 181 5- 16 

that the termination of the great continental war would bring 

about a period of even greater expansion and 

discontent commercial supremacy for Great Britain. " Peace 

of the labour- ^nd Prosperity" have always been linked in 
ing classes. . 

men's mmds. It is, therefore, at first sight 

strange to find that the five years which immediately followed 

Waterloo were among the most troublous and unhappy periods 

in our domestic history. So widespread and long-continued 

was the distress and unrest, that men of gloomy and pessimistic 



DISTRESS AFTER THE WAR. 57 

frame of mind feared that we were on the edge of a social 
revolution. The causes of the misery of the years 18 16-21 
are, however, not difficult to understand. They affected both 
the agricultural and the manufacturing interests. 

The war had naturally caused an enormous rise in the 
prices of all agricultural produce. We had been cut off from 
the corn-markets of Europe, and after 181 2 from 
those of America also. Moreover, the unwise ^[f^^Q^s "^^ 
system of " protection," which the Tory party 
consistently carried out, tended to keep corn artificially dear 
by the heavy import duties imposed on the supply from foreign 
countries. This monopoly of the English grower of cereal 
products had led to an altogether unnatural inflation of prices : 
thrice between 18 10 and 18 14 the annual average value of the 
quarter of wheat had risen over looi". We consider it dear 
now when the figure of 30^". has been reached. While the 
town dwellers suffered from the exorbitant cost of the loaf, 
the land-owners and farmers had gained : the rents of the 
one, the profits of the other, had increased to an immoderate 
degree. The poorer agricultural classes had not shared to any 
great extent in this prosperity, owing to the iniquitous system 
of the Poor Law, of which we shall have to speak later on. 
But from 1814 onward the inflated war prices ceased, and 
during the next three years the cost of wheat varied from 60s. 
to 8oi". the quarter, instead of from gos. to 120^". This was 
a terrible blow to the farmers and landlords, who had calculated 
their rents and their expenditure on the higher average, as if 
the war was to last for ever. The whole agricultural interest 
was very hard hit, and many individuals were ruined. But 
the worst of the stress fell on the unfortunate labourers, 
though they had not shared in the profits of the time of 
inflated prices that had just ended. When the farmers were 
turning off their hands and cutting down wages, the poorer 
classes in the country were not compensated by the fact that 
the loaf had become appreciably cheaper. There followed 



S8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

acute distress, which ended in riots and rick-burning over large 

districts of the southern and midland shires. There were 

wild rumours of secret associations, of plots for a general rising 

like that of the French peasants in 1789, with plunder and 

massacre to follow. Most of this talk was groundless, but 

there was a certain amount of fire beneath the smoke, and in 

many parts the labourers were ready for mischief. 

While rural England was in this unhappy state, the great 

towns were also in evil case. In 18 15- 18 the manufacturing 

~, , , . classes were sufiferino; from their own set of 
Troubles in ° 

the manufac- troubles almost as much as the agricultural 
tunngtowns. classes. The cessation of the war had put an 
end to the unnatural expansion of the industries which had 
profited by our naval and military expenditure : the price of 
iron, for example, fell from ^20 to ^8 a ton when the Govern- 
ment ceased to be a buyer. In many trades, too, over-specu- 
lation on the part of the great employers of labour led to 
distress. There had been a widespread notion that the 
countries of the continent would be able to absorb almost any 
amount of English goods the moment that the Continental 
System was removed. ' Our factories at once threw upon the 
world such a vastly-increased output that the foreign market 
was glutted: indeed, the final struggle of 18 12-14 had so 
drained the resources of France, Russia, Spain, and Germany, 
that they had little or no money to buy luxuries or even neces- 
saries. The exported goods had to be sent back or sold at an 
actual loss. Hence came bankruptcies and wholesale dis- 
missal of operatives at home. '' The labour market was at the 
same time affected by the disbanding of many scores of 
thousands of soldiers and sailors. As many as 250,000 men 
were released from service in 1816-17-18, and had to find 
themselves new trades at short notice. Another source of 
trouble was the dying out of the old trades which had sub- 
sisted on hand-labour, and were being superseded by machinery. 
The last generation of the workmen in these industries suffered 



DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 59 

bitter privations before they could or would transfer themselves 
to other occupations. It was they who distinguished them- 
selves by the so-called Luddite outrages, in which gangs went 
by night to destroy the machinery in the new factories which 
were underselling their labour. 

The Government which had to face all these difficulties, 
social and economic, was unfortunately not in the least com- 
petent to deal with them. George III. had ,. , 

. . Madness of 

fallen mto his last fit of melancholy madness in the King— 

18 10, and his son George, Prince of Wales, was tJ^ Prince 

. . Regent, 

a sorry substitute for him. The father had often 

been obstinate and wrong-headed, but at least he was always 
honest, courageous, and a model of all the domestic virtues : 
no one could help respecting the good old king, whatever he 
might think of his wisdom. But the Regent was frankly dis- 
reputable : he tried the loyalty of England to the monarchical 
system as no other ruler has done since James II. A de- 
bauchee and gambler, a disobedient son, a cruel husband, a 
heartless father, an ungrateful and treacherous friend, he was 
a sore burden to the ministries which had to act in his name 
and palliate his misdoings. There was a widespread hope that 
his ruined constitution would not carry him through many 
more years, and that the succession might pass to his young 
daughter, the Princess Charlotte. But she died in childbirth 
in 181 6, a year after her marriage to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 
and her father was destined to prolong his worthless life for 
fourteen years longer. 

The cabinet which held office under the Regent was the 
Tory administration of Lord Liverpool. Its chief was an 
honest man and a good financier, but narrow- Lord Liver- 
minded, prejudiced, and blindly opposed to all pool's Cabi- 
measures of political reform. His home secretary ^^ * 
was Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), the unsuccessful premier 
of 1 80 1-4, a man even more bigoted than his chief. Foreign 
affairs were in the hands of Lord Castlereagh, another high 



6o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Tory, who had done good service as a diplomatist during the 
Napoleonic war, but was a reactionary, and suspected of being 
too great a friend of the despotic monarchs of the continent. 

Lord Liverpool's ministry acted according to the best of its 
lights in dealing with the crisis of 1816-20. They cut down 

expenses as far as they were able, reduced the 
reoressf e ^rmy and navy to the lowest limit consistent with 
measures of safety, and did good service by restoring the 
ment ^^^"' currency, and replacing by a new coinage of gold 

sovereigns the depreciated bank-notes which had 
carried England through the war.* But thrift and honest 
finance were not sufficient to deal with the national troubles : 
measures of political and economic reform were urgently 
needed, and these the Liverpool cabinet was determined not 
to grant. They looked upon the strikes and riots that vexed 
the land, not as manifestations of poverty and starvation — 
which was in the main their real character — but as symptoms 
of a dangerous revolutionary conspiracy against the monarchy. 
The few noisy demagogues who were endeavouring to make 
capital out of the national discontent, they treated as if they 
were embryo Robespierres and Marats. Against the demon- 
strations and meetings of the distressed they employed armed 
force with a wholly unnecessary harshness. In the one or two 
cases where the rioters acted with violence, as at the Spa 
Fields Riot in London (1816), the Derby rising (June, 1817), 
and the Bonnymuir rising in Scotland (June, 1820), they made 
a very feeble show when resolutely faced : but the Government 
none the less had some dozens of them executed for treason. 
A much less formidable indictment and a far milder punish- 
ment would have sufficed for such half-hearted revolutionaries. 
The greatest of the mistakes of the ruling powers was the 

♦ In the worst years of the war the bank-note for ;^5 would only buy 
about ;[^3 i8j. in gold. There had been practically no coinage of guineas 
since 1797, nor of silver since 1787. The new issue of gold was made in 
sovereigns, not in guineas, a great convenience in all payments. 



THE CATO-STREET CONSPIRACY. 6l 

unhappy business at Manchester on August i6, 1819. An 
orderly demonstration by an unarmed multitude was dispersed 
by a cavalry charge, in which some five or six people were 
trodden to death, and sixty or seventy injured or wounded. 

The cabinet had just so much excuse that there were a few 
hot-headed demagogues who really meant mischief. The best 
known was a certain Arthur Thistlewood, a bank- ^j^^ Cato- 
rupt adventurer who had a small following in street Con- 
London. He was a wild incendiary of the type ^P^^^^y* 
of the French Jacobins, whose language and violence he care- 
fully imitated. To avenge the " Manchester Massacre," he 
plotted the wholesale murder of the ministers. Learning that 
the whole cabinet were about to dine together on February 23, 
1820, he persuaded a score of frantic desperadoes to join him 
in an attempt to break into the house where they were to meet, 
for the purpose of slaying them all. He was betrayed by an 
accomplice, and his band was surrounded by a company of 
guards at their trysting-place in Cato Street, and arrested after 
a bloody scuffle. Thistlewood and several of his accomplices 
were very properly hung. Abhorrence for their atrocious plot 
had a good deal of effect in restraining further agitation. 

Just before the " Cato Street Conspiracy " had been frus- 
trated, the old king George HI. died, and the regent ascended 
the throne under the name of George IV. It was , 
assuredly not from any merit of his that the George IV. 

national troubles began soon after to die down. Need of 
rx., r 11 • , 1 1 r reforms. 

The fact was that they were mamly the result of 

famine and despair, and that about 1820 there was a marked 
recovery in trade in the manufacturing districts, while in the 
countryside the farmers and labourers had succeeded in 
adapting themselves in some degree to the new scale of prices 
for agricultural produce. Riots and outrages gradually sub- 
sided, but there remained a strong political dislike for the 
Tory cabinet and its harsh and repressive measures. The 
middle classes had begun to go over to the side of the Whigs, 



62 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

who now, for the first time since the outbreak of the great 
French war, began to find that they had a solid and powerful 
backing in the nation. Men had willingly consented to put 
aside all demands for constitutional change as long as the 
struggle with Napoleon lasted. It was now high time that the 
projects for political reform, which Pitt had sketched out 
thirty years before, should be taken in hand. As Pitt's heirs 
in the Tory party showed small signs of carrying them out, all 
those who were anxious to see them brought forward joined 
the other camp. 

The chief of these burning questions was the Emancipation 
of the Catholics from political disabilities — a topic which had 
not been seriously raised since 1807 — and the 
the Tories reform of the House of Commons, which was 
growing more unrepresentative of the nation 
every day. On certain other points — such as Free Trade, the 
removal of the protective duties placed on foreign corn and 
other commodities, the abolition of slavery in the British colo- 
nies, the reform of the Poor Laws — there was division in 
the Tory camp : the older generation were for leaving every- 
thing where it was : the younger were more ready to move 
on. In face of a vigorous and growing opposition, it is 
astonishing how long the Liverpool cabinet succeeded in staving 
off all manner of reforms : the delay was only rendered pos- 
sible by the fact that the House of Commons so grossly mis- 
represented the nation. As long as the system of " rotten 
boroughs " went on, a Government supported by the majority 
of borough-mongers could defy public opinion in a manner 
that has long ceased to be possible. 

It is a notable fact, as illustrating the politics of that day, 
that the first checks to the policy of this rigid Tory Govern- 
Geore-e IV ^'^^^'^^ came not on any great question of reform, 
and Queen but on a personal matter concerning the king. 
aro ine. George IV. had been separated for many years 
from his unfortunate wife, Caroline of Brunswick. Deserted by 



TRIAL OF QUEEN CAROLINE. 63 

her husband, she had fallen into an unwise and undignified 
manner of life, wandering round the continent with a train of 
disreputable foreign attendants. She was a vain, silly, and 
vulgar woman, in whom no one could have felt any interest 
if she had not been so ill-treated by the man who should have 
been her protector. When George III. died, she announced 
her intention of returning to England in order to be crowned 
along with her husband. The king looked upon her approach 
with dismay, and tried to frighten her away with threats of 
cutting off her income. But she came back in spite of him, 
whereupon George took the invidious step of persuading Lord 
Liverpool to allow a bill for her divorce to be brought before 
Parliament. His own conduct had been so disgraceful that 
he should not have dared to attack his wife. With deep feel- 
ings of secret shame the ministers lent themselves to this 
miserable scheme. A long parliamentary inquiry followed, 
which led to no conclusive proofs of the queen having been 
guilty of more than silly vanity and indecorum. The Whig 
leaders and the mob of London took up her cause, and meet- 
ings and demonstrations followed in quick succession. Dis- 
gusted at their position, the ministers in November, 1820, 
suddenly dropped their bill and let the queen go free. She 
started a violent agitation against her husband, and would 
have caused much trouble if she had not died suddenly in the 
next year. 

In modern days a ministry would resign after such a blow 
to its credit as the cabinet of 1820 had sustained in the 
matter of the queen's trial. Lord Liverpool and rhane-es in 
his colleagues, however, clung to office, but for the Cabinet 
the future had lost the complete command over ^oi-CaiT-^^" 
Parliament which they had hitherto possessed, ning minis- 
In 182 1 the character of the ministry began to ^* 
change : Addington (Lord Sidmouth), who had been mainly 
responsible for the mismanagement of home affairs, resigned ; 
Lord Castlereagh in the next year committed suicide in a 



64 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

moment of insanity caused by overwork ; several other of the 
old Tories disappeared from office. To replace them Lord 
Liverpool introduced younger men, who were not so entirely 
reactionary in their views, and were ready to follow the teach- 
ing of William Pitt in his earlier days, by linking the name of 
the Tory party with the idea of domestic reform. The chief 
of these were Canning, Huskisson, and Sir Robert Peel. The 
first-named statesman succeeded Castlereagh as foreign secre- 
tary, and promptly carried out a radical change in our European 
policy. 

Huskisson, who w^as a convinced free-trader, began to do 
his best to get rid of the protective duties that were cramping 
Huskisson English commerce and manufactures. His great 
and Free principle was to reduce the import duties on all 
^^ ^* raw materials — such as wool or silk — which were 

afterwards worked up in English factories. When once these 
commodities came in unburdened by taxes, their increased 
cheapness enabled our manufacturers to produce their fabrics 
at a rate which defied foreign competition. Huskisson would 
have got rid of the corn-duties also, but Tory prejudice foiled 
him. 

Peel, though not yet so far advanced in his view^s as his two 
colleagues, did admirable work as home secretary in the direc- 
Peel and ^^°" ^^ administrative reform, and the mitigation 

Criminal of the unreasonable harshness of the criminal 

aw e orm. |^^^ -g^ ^ barbarous survival of mediaeval prac- 
tice, there were still many scores of offences for which the 
death-penalty was prescribed : among them were such com- 
paratively insignificant crimes as sheep-stealing, shop-lifting, 
and coining. Peel was the first minister of the Crown who 
began to cut dow^n this dreadful list. He still left the gallows 
as the doom of those guilty of forgery, murderous assaults, 
and many other acts which are now sufficiently punished by 
penal servitude, but struck out a good many items from the 
appalling total. The rest w^ere all removed within fifteen years, 



FOREIGN POLITICS IN 1821. 65 

and murder and treason have for a long time been the only 
offences for which capital punishment is retained. 

Canning's work at the Foreign Office demands a longer 
explanation. Ever since 18 15 the continent had been under 
the control of the autocratic monarchs who had 
put down Napoleon. They lived in dread of a g^^^^^^o" ^" 
recrudescence of the revolutionary ideas which 
had been started by the Jacobins of France, and governed 
their subjects with a very tight hand, utterly refusing to listen 
to any petitions for the introduction of representative govern- 
ment or constitutional reforms. This was all the more hard 
because of the liberal promises which they had made to their 
peoples, when they were rousing them in 181 2-13 to join in 
the general crusade against Bonaparte and the Continental 
System. The nations felt that they had been scurvily treated 
by their rulers, and from Poland to Portugal the whole con- 
tinent was full of ferment and unrest. There were plots, con- 
spiracies, and agitations in every quarter, some aiming at the 
overturning of autocratic government and the obtaining of a free 
constitution, others more national in character, and directed 
against the ruthless cutting up of ancient states and peoples 
which had taken place at the Congress of Vienna in 18 14-15. In 
Germany and Spain the former idea prevailed, in Italy and 
Poland the latter. The Emperor of Russia con- 
ceived the idea of joining all the monarchs of Tjl? ,}^ 
Europe in a league against reform and liberal 
ideas, and framed the celebrated " Holy Alliance " in conjunc- 
tion with Francis of Austria and Frederick William of Prussia. 
The restored Bourbons of France, Spain, and Naples were 
wholly in agreement with them. 

This reactionary confederacy had dominated Europe from 
1815 to 1822. Castlereagh, while controlling the 
foreign policy of England, had refused to join -g^^^^^j^"^ o^ 
the " Holy Alliance " ; but, on the other hand, he 
had done nothing to hinder its work or to mark English 

F 



66 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

disapproval of its narrow and despotic principles. Continental 
Liberals had always hoped for moral if not for tangible aid 
from free and constitutional England, and had failed to get it. 
We had looked on while the troops of Austria invaded Italy, 
and put down the new Constitution which had been unwillingly 
granted by King Ferdinand of Naples (182 1), and while the 
armies of Louis XVIIL were being directed against the Spanish 
Liberals. 

When Canning replaced Castlereagh at the Foreign Office 
(1822), this period of passive acquiescence came to an end, 
P . , and English influence was used against the alliance 
new foreign of the despots. It was too late to save Spain, 
policy. which was overrun by the French in the spring 

of 1823, but Portugal was preserved from the same fate by the 
energetic threats which were made against French intervention 
there. The independence of the Spanish colonies in America, 
which had long been in revolt against the misgovernment of 
the mother-country, was recognized. In the east of Europe, 
where the Greeks had rebelled against the Sultan after four 
centuries of miserable oppression. Canning used all his influence 
in their aid. Money and volunteers from England were per- 
mitted to make their way to the ^Egean. Among the English 
*' Phil-Hellenes " the most notable were the daring seaman 
Lord Cochrane, and the poet Byron, who roused himself from 
a life of idleness and luxury in Italy to give his aid to an 
ancient people in distress. He died of fever not long after his 
arrival in Greece ; but his stirring poems and his excellent 
example did much to strengthen the wave of feeling in Western 
Europe which ultimately secured the freedom of Hellas. 
Canning, meanwhile, did all that he could short of declaring 
war to bring pressure on Sultan Mahmood, and to compel him 
to recognize the independence of his revolted subjects. He 
was prevented from going further by the uncertain attitude of 
the other powers, and especially of France and Russia, who 
could not make up their minds whether to regard Mahmood 



DEATH OF CANNING. 67 

as a legitimate monarch endeavouring to suppress Liberals, 

and therefore a friend, or as a Mahometan persecutor, outside 

the pale of a " Holy Alliance " of Christian kings. 

In February 1827 Lord Liverpool was stricken down with 

paralysis, and the king, after some hesitation, offered Canning 

the vacant post of prime minister. He accepted ^ , , . 

- 1 -jri ri,i Lord Liver- 

it, and promptly got rid of the remnant 01 the old pool retires 

Tories who had still clun^ to office under his pre- 'T^^^^^ °^ 

^1, 1 • , 1 Canning, 

decessor. Their places were filled with the more 

enlightened members of the party. It was hoped that a period 
of progress and prosperity, as marked as that of Pitt's famous 
rule in 1784-92, was about to commence, for the new premier 
had great schemes on foot both at home and abroad. But 
Canning had hardly time to settle down into office when he 
was carried oft' by an attack of dysentery (August 8, 1827). 
His death, only five months after he had reached the position 
in which he had the power to carry out his policy, was a most 
unfortunate event both for England and for the Tory party. 
His ministry continued in office for a few months under the 
nominal premiership of Lord Gooderich, and then broke up for 
want of a master mind to keep them together. 

The king, whose sympathies were all with reaction and the 
older Tories, invited the Duke of Wellington to take Canning's 
place. A more unfortunate appointment could -^^veiiine-ton 
not have been made : the great general proved to Prime 
be a very poor politician. Personally, he had no inister. 
sympathy with his predecessor's views ; he believed in keeping 
things where they were in domestic politics. Free-trade, 
Catholic emancipation, and parliamentary reform were as dis- 
tasteful to him as they had been to Addington or Castlereagh. 
In foreign policy his rooted principle was a dislike of conti- 
nental Liberals ; , he had seen a great deal of the Spanish 
reformers in 1809-13, and had imbibed a great contempt for 
them and all their compeers in other lands. The duke was 
thoroughly honest and upright in all his principles and 



68 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

prejudices, and he came on the scene with a splendid reputation 
for loyalty and patriotism. But he had never learnt the art of 
managing Parliament, of facing a determined opposition, or 
keeping together a party which consisted of two sections of 
divergent views. He very soon turned out of his ministry 
Huskisson, and the rest of Canning's followers, replacing them 
by Tories of the old reactionary breed. His first important 
action in foreign policy was to abandon his predecessor's sup- 
port of the Greek insurgents, though England had been fully 
committed to their cause. 

In the summer of 1827, while Canning still lived, an 
English fleet had been sent to the Levant with directions to 
bring pressure to bear on the Turkish army in the 
Navarino. Peloponnesus, and force its commandant, Ibrahim 
Pasha, to agree to an armistice with the Greeks. 
Admiral Codrington interpreted his orders in a stringent sense, 
forbade the Pasha to move, and when he continued the usual 
policy of massacre sailed into Navarino Bay and blew to 
pieces the large Turko-Egyptian fleet which was lying there 
(October 13, 1827). He was given unstinted applause by the 
English nation, but not by the prime minister, who disavowed 
his action, styled the battle of Navarino "a most untoward 
event," and refused to take any further action against the Porte. 
Russia stepped in when Wellington withdrew : the new Czar, 
Nicholas I., sent an army across the Balkans, forced the Sultan 
to recognize the independence of Greece, and paid himself by 
confiscating a large slice of Turkish territory (August, 1828). 

Throughout the three years during which he held office 
(1828-30), the " Iron Duke " did little to justify his reputation 
Wellington ^^^ firmness and steadfast purpose. There can 
as a poli- be no doubt that his own inclination would have 
ician. been to avoid all manner of constitutional change, 

and keep things exactly as they stood. But he showed an 
unexpected faculty for yielding when he was attacked and 
worried by the opposition. When his plans were defeated in 



CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION GRANTED. 69 

the House of Commons he did not resign, as most ministers 
with a parUamentary training would have done, but retained 
office, and often ended by allowing measures of which he dis- 
approved to become law., As has been well remarked by one 
of his critics, " He treated politics as if they were military cam- 
paigns, and when beaten out of his position did not throw up 
the game, but gave way, and only retired on to another similar 
position in the rear." This line of conduct had, to the outside 
observer, every appearance of weakness, and looked like an 
undignified clinging to oflice. The duke, however, was honestly 
convinced that he was necessary to the State, and only retained 
the premiership because he thought that his resignation would 
open the way to revolution and civil strife. 

His first retreat was carried out after a dispute on a reli- 
gious question. The " Test Act " and " Corporation Act," 

which obliged members of corporations and office- 

, 11 11^ 1 r ■ r Repeal of the 

holders under the Crown to make a profession of Test Act and 

conformity to the Church of Enu;land, had long ^^^ Corpora- 

j J 1 T^- r „ ,1 tion Act. 

been a dead letter. Dissenters of all sorts had 

been allowed to evade their provisions. Yet when it was pro- 
posed to abolish these relics of seventeenth-century bigotry, 
the duke made a great show of resistance. The Whigs, how- 
ever, succeeded m passing a resolution against them in the 
Commons : thereupon Wellington suddenly yielded, gave the 
measure the support of the ministry, and allowed the Acts to 
be repealed (1828). 

His next show of weakness was even more startling. For 
some years the question of Catholic Emancipation, the old 
bugbear of George HI., had been much obtruded ^ , .. 
on public notice, mainly by an agitation in Ireland, Emanci- 
headed by the ablest Irishman whom the century P^-tion. 
has produced. The grievance of the Irish Catholics was a 
perfectly legitimate one : they had assented to the Union in 
1800, because Pitt had promised that they should be given in 
the United Kingdom the same rights as their Protestant fellow- 



70 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

subjects. Pitt had failed to redeem his pledge, owing to no 
fault of his own, but to the old king's obstinacy. Now that 
George III. was dead, there was no reason why the promise 
given in 1800 should not be fulfilled: no one could believe 
that George IV. had any conscientious objection to it — unlike 
his father, he had no conscience at all. Nevertheless, the Tory 
party, with the exception of Canning and his friends, had 
refused to take up Pitt's engagement to the Catholics. Wel- 
lington, himself an Anglo-Irish Protestant by birth, had been 
as unbending as Liverpool or Addington. 

In 1823 O'Connell had founded a league called the " Catholic 
Association," to bring pressure on the English Government. 

It was a powerful, well-organized body, which 
and the worked by proclamations and monster demonstra- 

Catholic tions in the usual Irish style; it even collected a 

kind of impost called the " Catholic Rent," which 
was paid with a good deal more regularity than the king's 
taxes. Nominally suppressed by law in 1825, it w^as still in 
full vigour in 1828. O'Connell was a man of splendid elo- 
quence and ready wit, with considerable organizing power. 
He was as completely the master of the Association as Parnell 
in later days was of the " Land League " ; but he set his face 
against outrages and worked wholly by moral suasion. With 
all Ireland at his back, and the support of the Whig party 
in England, he was a most formidable power. To show his 
strength he had himself elected as Member of Parliament 
for County Clare, though he could not of course take his 
seat so long as the old laws against Catholics were still in 
force. 

Confronted with this great agitation, continually harassed by 
the Whigs, and opposed by the Canningite wing of his own 

party, Wellington for some time refused to listen 
c-ives'way? ^^ ^^^ proposal for Catholic Emancipation. But 

suddenly, in the spring of 1829, his resistance 
collapsed; to the surprise and disgust of his own bigoted 



O'CONNELL AND REPEAL. 71 

followers, he announced that he had become convinced that 
further resistance would only lead to civil war in Ireland, and 
that, rather than force matters to extremity, the ministry would 
bring in a bill placing the Catholics in the same position in 
matters political as members of the Established Church. Every 
post in the State was thrown open to them save those of King, 
Regent, Lord Chancellor, or Viceroy of Ireland. This 
measure was passed by the aid of the Whigs and the Can- 
ningites. A great proportion of the Duke's old Tory friends 
in both houses voted against it ; for the future they distrusted 
Wellington, and could not be relied on to vote solidly at his 
order. 

Nothing could have been more calculated to encourage the 
duke's adversaries than this display of weakness on his part. 
In Ireland O'Connell at once started another 'Y'he " Re- 
agitation, this time in favour of the dissolution of peal " 
the Union of rSoo — " Repeal " as it was popularly ^^^ ^ ^°"* 
styled in 1830, Home-Rule as we should call it now. For 
nearly a score of years this movement was to convulse the 
sister island ; meanwhile O'Connell himself appeared at West- 
minster with a following of fifty Irish Catholic members ready 
to make trouble for English ministries, Tory or Whig, in every 
possible way. 

That Wellington retained office for more than a year after 
he had conceded Catholic Emancipation, was only due to the 
fact that in respect for his personal character and the great 
things he had done for England in 1808-15, his adversaries 
refrained from pressing him to extremity. All his measures' in 
1829-30 were weak and ill-judged; he even abandoned our 
Portuguese allies, whom Canning had saved in 1826, and 
allowed Dom Miguel, a usurper of most reactionary views, to 
be established as king in their country. But the overthrow of 
the ministry was deferred till November, 1830, before which 
date there was a general change in English politics caused by 
outside events. 



72 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

On June 26, 1830, George IV. had died in his sixty-eighth 
year, unregretted by any single class of his subjects. It was a 
great boon to the nation that his successor was a 
William IV P^mce of a very different stamp. 

William, Duke of Clarence, the king's next 
surviving brother, who now ascended the throne under the 
name of William IV., was a simple, good-hearted, genial old 
man, who had served with credit in the navy, and had long 
occupied the honorary post of Lord High Admiral. His 
intelligence was limited, but his intentions were good, and 
no one could dislike or despise him. The only thing against 
him was an eccentricity which sometimes led him into absurd 
speeches and actions, and made men fear that he was tainted 
with the insanity of his father, George III. Fortunately their 
dread turned out to be unfounded ; he kept his head and made 
an admirable constitutional king. It was of enormous benefit 
to the nation as well as the monarchy that he was not a party 
man like his brother, and got on with the Whigs as well as 
with the Tories. He had married late in life (1818) and had 
two daughters, but both of them died in infancy, so that the 
succession to the throne now passed to his ten-year-old niece 
Alexandrina Victoria, the only child of Edward Duke of Kent, 
the fourth son of George III. 

During the very week in which William IV. ascended the 

throne the political horizon of Europe grew overcast. The 

domination of the " Holy Alliance " was suddenly 

Europe in _ threatened by popular risings in every region of 

1830— Louis . , , , r ; 

Philippe the contment, the natural result of fifteen years 

fVi^F^ °^Vi " ^^ despotic rule, during which every national and 
constitutional aspiration had been crushed by 
brute force. The trouble began in Paris, where the narrow- 
minded and reactionary Charles X. was expelled by a revolt 
in which the army joined the mob. France did not become a 
red republic, as many had feared, but merely changed its 
dynasty ; for Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, a very astute 



THE WHIGS IN OFFICE. 73 

intriguer, succeeded in putting himself at the head of the move- 
ment and was saluted as constitutional " King of the French " — • 
the old title, " King of France," was dropped as savouring of feu- 
dalism. From Paris the wave of revolution spread right and left : 
there followed a vigorous rebellion in Poland against the des- 
potism of Czar Nicholas I., a rising of the Belgians against their 
enforced union with Holland, insurrections in Spain and Por- 
tugal, and troubles of a less desperate sort in Germany and Italy. 
In the midst of these foreign complications the Wellington 
ministry at last came to an end. The death of the late king 
was followed by a general election, in which 
more than fifty seats in the Commons were lost ^^^^ of 
by the old Tory party. The fact was that the ministry—"^ 
duke's weak policy had disgusted his own sup- '^^^ Whigs 
porters, and even the knot of borough-mongers office, 
who were its firmest adherents had not exerted 
themselves very ardently in his cause. In the English counties, 
where popular feeling was able to express itself better than 
in the boroughs, more than sixty out of the eighty-two members 
returned were Whigs. When the new parliament met in 
November the ministers were defeated by a majority of 
twenty-nine on the first contentious topic that came up. 
Wellington resigned, and the king, in due constitutional form, 
sent for the head of the Whig party, and entrusted him with 
the formation of a cabinet. The new Prime Minister was 
Charles Earl Grey, the last survivor of the old Whig chiefs 
who had fought out the long struggle with the younger Pitt. 
He had been Foreign Secretary in the Orenville cabinet of 
1807, but nearly all his colleagues were younger men who had 
never before held office. The only other members indeed of 
the ministry who had any administrative experience were three 
of Canning's followers, who now consented to join the Whig 
party — Lords Melbourne, Palmerston, and Gooderich. Their 
Lord Chancellor was Brougham, an eloquent but eccentric 
orator, who had shown himself formidable in attack while 



74 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Tory cabinets were in power, but proved far too flighty and 
capricious as a responsible minister of the Crown. 

Lord Grey was a man whom age had rendered cautious and 
moderate ; he succeeded in carrying out the long-needed 
reforms, for which the nation had been waiting 
since 1815, with the minimum of friction and 
trouble. A less judicious leader might have provoked very 
serious political strife, for all the elements of discord were 
present in the situation. The Tory party commanded a great 
majority in the House of Lords, and controlled a large and un- 
scrupulous minority in the Lower House : the seats of so many 
representatives of rotten boroughs were imperilled by the 
impending reform of the Commons, that they were naturally 
full of impotent and factious wrath. Lord Grey had an- 
nounced, on accepting office, that he intended to make Par- 
liamentary Reform the main feature of his administration, so 
his adversaries had fair notice of his intentions. 

The condition of the House of Commons, considered as a 
representative body, had been growing more and more of 
Necessity of ^ disgraceful anomaly for two hundred years. 
Parliament- There had been practically no change in its con- 
ary Reform, gtitution since the reign of Queen Elizabeth; 
scores of boroughs that had been flourishing market towns 
or seaports in the middle ages had sunk into decayed villages 
— some, like Gatton and Old Sarum, had dwindled down to a 
couple of houses. On the other hand, great industrial centres 
like Leeds or Birmingham had no representative whatever. 
In the shires things were almost as ridiculous — the great 
counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, reckoning their in- 
habitants by the million, had the same two members as 
Rutland. It is hard to see how the survival of the antiquated 
system could have been seriously defended, save by the 
landowners who dominated " rotten boroughs " of the type of 
Old Sarum, or the capitalists who liked to buy a seat instead 
of facing troublesome masses of constituents. Pitt had 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 75 

introduced a Reform Bill as far back as 1785, but it had been 
thrown out by a factious combination of the Whigs and the 
borough-mongers. Since 1792 the old Tory party had been 
almost continuously in office, and had always rejected any 
proposals for reform : the fact was that the existing anomalous 
state of affairs suited them, because the large majority of the 
rotten seats were in the hands of their supporters. 

Every year since 182 1 some Whig leader had broached the 
topic in the Commons, and every time his project had been 
summarily thrown out. Public opinion had been q ,. ^ 
getting more excited on the point at each rejec- the Reform 
tion. The middle classes, which had been steadily ^S^^^^^o"* 
Tory throughout the Great War, had begun to pass over whole- 
sale to the Whig party, under the reactionary Liverpool regime^ 
and the Duke of Wellington's mismanagement had finished 
their conversion. It was intolerable that all progressive legis- 
lation should be stopped because a few scores of borough- 
mongers commanded enough votes to hold the balance in the 
House of Commons. It was ludicrous that a householder in 
Winchelsea or Appleby should have the privilege of choosing a 
member, while a householder in Liverpool or Leeds should 
not. The agitation which was on foot in 1816-20 was very 
different from that which now prevailed in 1830-32. The 
former had its roots in famine and poverty ; it had only influ- 
enced the labouring classes, and had been led by a few hot- 
headed demagogues. The latter was essentially a middle-class 
movement ; its leaders were the merchants and bankers of the 
great towns which were denied representation. It had the support 
of the masses, who hoped that a more representative Parliament 
would lead to enlightened social legislation for their benefit, 
but the real strength of the agitation lay in the well-to-do house- 
holders of the towns. Hence it was comparatively orderly in 
its progress ; it was only in a few places like Bristol, where 
special local circumstances embittered feeling, that riot and 
disorder followed the campaign in favour of Reform. 



76 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In March, 1831, Lord John Russell, a scion of the great 

Whig house of the Dukes of Bedford, introduced the Reform 

Bill in its first shape. It soon became evident 
The Reform ,,...,.. . , 

Bill passed that the mmisterial majority was not large enough 

in the House to carry the measure ; though the representatives 
of Commons. ,- ^ • 1 r 1 ^ r 

of five sixths 01 the great constituencies voted tor 

it, the members for the rotten boroughs were so numerous and 
so resolved not to sanction their own destruction, that the 
second reading of the bill was only carried by one vote (302 
to 301) in the fullest house that had ever met. Seeing that 
they could not hope to finish the business with such a small 
majority. Lord Grey and his colleagues offered to resign ; the 
king refused to receive their resignation, but dissolved Parlia- 
ment instead, to give the nation its opportunity of renewing or 
refusing its mandate to the Whig party. The election was 
carried out in the midst of a tremendous agitation, unparalleled 
in the history of the nation ; it ended, as might have been 
expected, in the ministers sweeping the whole country and 
obtaining a decisive majority of 136. In September the great 
bill was reintroduced, and passed all its three readings in the 
Commons with ease. 

The resistance of the Tories had now to be transferred to 
the House of Lords, in which they were omnipotent. Pitt and 
Thrown out ^^^ successors had almost swamped the upper 
by the House chamber by their lavish creations of peers during 
o or s. ^j^g i^gj. fQj.j.y years. Not gauging at its full 
strength the determination of the country to have the bill 
passed, the Lords threw it out by a majority of 41 (October, 

1831). 

The winter of 1831-32 was spent in furious agitation against 

„. . . the House of Lords. Meeting; after meeting. 
Violent de- fo &> 

monstrations attended by scores of thousands of the members 

against the of " Political Unions," " National Unions," and 
Lords. 

other such bodies, asserted their desire for 

" The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." The 



THE CRISIS OF MAY, 1832. 77 

advanced wing of the Whig party, who were just beginning to 
call themselves '* Radicals," began to agitate for the abolition 
of hereditary titles and the destruction of the Upper House. 
The results of the effervescence of popular feeling were shown 
when the cabinet once more introduced their bill ; it passed 
rapidly through the Commons, and after a hot debate in the 
House of Lords its second reading was carried by a small 
majority (April 14, 1832). 

But the Whigs had not yet completed their victory. Instead 
of openly throwing out the bill, the Tory peers tried another 
device : they proposed to mutilate it by post- 
poning the clauses which disfranchised the rotten ^.^e Lords to 
boroughs, without which the bill was practically mutilate the 
useless. When this side blow was successful in 
the Lords, Grey promptly resigned and challenged the opposi- 
tion to take over the management of affairs if they dared. The 
king sent for the Duke of Wellington, and invited him to form 
a Tory cabinet. For seven days the Iron Duke contemplated 
the possibility of facing the angry nation, and sounded his 
party as to their willingness to take the risk. During that 
week the nation was on the brink of civil war ; many of the 
more hot-headed leaders of the Whig party made preparations 
for arming the members of the Reform associations and march- 
ing on London. Others, with greater ingenuity, organized a 
run on the Bank of England, in the hope that the enemy would 
not dare to face a financial as well as a political crisis. " To 
stop the duke, go for gold " was the word passed round among 
the merchants of London (May 8-15, 1832). 

Fortunately for the peace of the realm, Wellington shrank 
from the responsibility of accepting office. He 
found that it was very doubtful if the army could ^^"^"Ston 
be trusted to act against the people. His Tory take office— 
friends showed a general reluctance to accept the rJJried 
posts in his projected cabinet. Finally, he returned 
to the king and advised him to send again for Lord Grey, as 



78 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

no alternative was possible. The Whig statesman would not 
return to power till he was granted a written promise that, if 
the House of Lords persisted in its opposition to Reform, the 
king would create new peers in sufficient numbers to swamp 
all resistance. This threat had its effect ; to prevent its 
being put in force, Wellington and several scores more of 
Tory peers solemnly marched out of the House when the 
bill was again sent up from the Commons. In their absence 
it was allowed to pass by a considerable majority (June 
4, 1832). 

The details of the bill demand a word of notice. It dis- 
franchised entirely no less than fifty-six " rotten boroughs," 
The redistri- "^^^ ^f which had more than 2000 inhabitants. 
bution of It deprived of one member each thirty small 

towns which had hitherto owned two representa- 
tives. This gave a total of 143 seats to be disposed of among 
the new centres of population. London got ten of them, new 
boroughs being created for Marylebone, Greenwich, Lambeth, 
Finsbury, and the Tower Hamlets. Twenty-two large towns, 
such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle, 
received two members each. Twenty-one places of secondary 
size were allotted one each. The more populous counties 
were cut up into divisions, to which sixty-five members were 
given. Eight new borough members were created in Scotland ; 
in Ireland (where the existing arrangements only dated back to 
1 800) there was hardly any need of change. 

At the same time the franchise was made uniform all over 

the United Kingdom ; before 1832 every borough had its own 

_, rules. In the towns, the power to vote was given 

i he new . 

borough and to every householder occupymg a tenement of the 

county value of •/Tio or over. In the counties the terms 

franchises. ■, ^ ^^ 

granted were less liberal ; to the freeholders, who 

possessed the franchise before, there were added as voters 

all copyholders and leaseholders holding lands to the annual 

value of ^10, and tenants-at-will of ^£^0 holdings. This 



DETAILS OF THE REFORM BILL. 79 

arrangement left the shopkeepers masters in the towns, and 
the farmers in the countryside. The artisans in the one, the 
agricultm-al labourers in the other, were still left without the 
franchise, and had to wait the one class thirty and the other 
fifty years before obtaining it. 



CHAPTER V. 

FROM THE GREAT REFORM BILL TO THE CRIMEAN WAR. 

1832-54. 

The passage of Lord Grey's Reform Bill is the central point of 
the political history of the nineteenth century. Never again 
Fears ex- ^^^ more than fifty years were men's passions to 
cited by the run so high ; the unrest caused by the Chartist 
Reform Bi . ^gij-^j-^Qj^ j^ 1838-48 was a mere nothing compared 
to the excitement in 1830-32. The only time that can be 
compared to those troubled years is the short period in 1886, 
when Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was in the air, and the 
Liberal party was bursting asunder. This later struggle only 
occupied a few months, but Lord Grey's battle with the Tories 
had covered nearly three years. If protracted a little longer, 
it would probably have led to the abolition of the House of 
Lords and many other sudden and destructive changes. To 
some people the time-honoured constitution of England seemed 
in danger ; they prophesied that the Radicals would sweep the 
Whigs in their train, and carry universal suffrage, vote by 
ballot, and the whole programme of complete democracy the 
moment that the great bill had passed. There were even 
persons who made wagers that the United Kingdom would 
cease to be a monarchy before ten years were out. 

Nothing could have been more ill-founded than these fears ; 



RESULTS OF THE REFORM BILL. «i 

when once the Reform Bill was passed the political horizon 
grew clear, and for the next twenty years the only 
really important topics in politics were matters of Its actual 
social and economic reform, such as the abolition Political 
of negro slavery in the colonies, the reform of the ascendency 
Poor Laws, the passing of the Factory Acts, and class, 
the gradual introduction of complete Free Trade. 
It is true that a busy agitation for democratic changes in the 
constitution was kept up by the Radicals and the " Chartists " 
for many years. But the middle classes, who had gained the 
control of the country by the Reform Bill, did not look with 
favour or interest on these projects, and steadfastly refused to 
allow them to be brought into the sphere of practical politics. 
The popular movement, which had broken down the opposition 
of the Tories and carried the bill of 1832, had been supported 
both by the middle classes and the labouring masses. The 
former, when it was passed, got possession of the power which 
they had coveted, and completely supplanted the old borough- 
mongering Tory oligarchy. They had no intention of allow- 
ing their new importance to be taken from them and given to 
the artisans and labourers ; hence they had no inclination to 
Universal Suffrage or any other such device for transferring the 
sovereignty of the realm to the proletariate. We may define 
their position clearly enough by saying that they were Whigs, 
and not Radicals; they wished for practical reforms, and not 
for a theoretical revision of the constitution. Hence there 
came a split among the ranks of the great host which had 
fought for reform in 1830-32 : the great majority of the leaders 
and organizers, and nearly all the wealth and intelligence of 
the party, were satisfied with what they had got, and settled 
down into contented Whiggery. The tail of the party — the 
unenfranchised masses, headed by a few demagogues — per- 
sisted in the cry for further constitutional changes : but though 
their demands were political, their aims were really social ; 
they wanted to raise the standard of comfort and prosperity 

G 



82 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

among the labouring classes much more than to claim political 
rights. If they asked for the latter, it was only in order to use 
them to obtain the former, for the old delusion that peoples 
can be made prosperous and happy by Act of Parliament was 
omnipotent among them. 

Meanwhile the main result of the Reform Bill in practical 

politics was to place the Whig party in power for more than 

♦ 

^ forty years, with only four short breaks. Their 

Supremacy . 

of the Whigs reign was almost as long as that of the Tories 

in Parlia- between 1784 and 1830, for between 1830 and 

1874 there were only eight years during which 

Tory administrations held office ; for the remaining thirty-six 

Whig cabinets of one shade or another presided over the 

administration of the United Kingdom. 

In foreign politics, the problems with which the Grey ministry 

had to deal, when the Reform Bill had been passed, differed 

^, , considerably from those of the old days of the 

The state of ^^^ , .„. „ , , r • ^ 

Europe— Holy Alliance and the reign 01 unrestrained 

Russia, Italy, despotism. The wave of revolution which had 
swept over the Continent in 1830 had left many 
traces behind it. In Russia, Italy, and Germany, indeed, 
the old landmarks of autocracy had not been permanently 
submerged, and the governments were as reactionary as ever. 
But the aspect of Europe had been profoundly changed by 
the fact that France had become a liberal and constitutional 
France monarchy under King Louis Philippe. As a rule, 

Belgium, and France and Endand now found themselves taking 
an . ^j^g same views on Continental politics ; if they 

sometimes disagreed, it was because Louis Philippe was a born 
intriguer and loved tortuous ways. Belgium was also established 
as a new constitutional kingdom, the Dutch having given up their 
attempt to hold her down when France interfered in favour of 
the insurgents. Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower of the 
English Princess Charlotte, was now king at Brussels, and main- 
tained a firm friendship both with England and with France. 



PALMERSTONS FOREIGN POLICY. 83 

In Spain King Ferdinand VII. had fallen into the hands of 
the Liberals in his old age, and had changed the line of suc- 
cession, so as to allow his daughter Isabella to 
reign instead of his bigoted and reactionary portu^ 
brother Don Carlos. In Portugal a civil war was 
raging, which ultimately terminated in the expulsion of the 
usurper Dom Miguel and the triumph of the constitutional 
Queen Maria. Her cause was successful mainly owing to 
English and French support, the turning-point of the war having 
been a naval battle off Cape St. Vincent, where the skill of 
Admiral Napier enabled the small fleet of Donna Maria to 
annihilate a Miguelite squadron of more than double his force. 
All Western Europe was, in 1833, more or less freed from the 
yoke of the alliance of the despotic monarchs, though in Spain 
the struggle was to linger on for more than seven years and to 
cause almost as much misery as the Peninsular War. The 
last partisans of Don Carlos did not lay down their arms 
till 1840, and the cruelties perpetrated on both sides had been 
worthy of Soudanese dervishes or Kurdish irregulars. 

On the whole, the foreign policy of the Whig Government 

was very successful ; the last fears of the domination of Europe 

by despotism passed away, and Lord Palmerston, 

the able Canningite convert who managed our Palmerston's 

external relations, won a reputation for skill and ^o^^ign 
... . . policy, 

decision which was destined to make him the 

almost inevitable Foreign Secretary of all the Whig Govern- 
ments of the next thirty years. He was, indeed, far the most 
capable of the Whig statesmen of his generation, and a n\uch 
more notable figure than the four prime ministers under whom 
he served. A bluff, hearty man, full of a genial self-confidence, 
and always determined that England should have her say in 
any European question that was pending, he was looked upon 
by his contemporaries as the ideal exponent of a " spirited 
foreign policy." We shall see that sometimes, as his opponents 
sneered, " his bark was worse than his bite ; " but on the whole 



84 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he was a good servant of his country, and contrasted very 
favourably as a diplomatist with his successors on the Liberal 
side of the house. 

But foreign affairs during the rule of the Grey cabinet were 
by no means so important as home matters. The years which 
Domestic followed the Reform Bill were full of constructive 
reforms of legislation intended to make up for the arrears of 

^ ^^^* the barren time since 1815. The most important 
of the bills introduced by the Grey cabinet was that which 
dealt with the Poor Laws ; but second only to this was the 
one which finally did away with negro slavery in our West 
Indian colonies. 

The Poor Law as it stood in 1832 was the most fertile source 
of misery that existed in the United Kingdom. Its unwise 
p , administration during the last forty years had 

administra- done more to bring about social evil and political 
^^°"* unrest than any other factor in the long list of 

popular grievances. For nearly two centuries the principle 
which governed the dealing of the State with pauperism had 
been a wise and sound one, laid down in the Poor Law of 1601 
— that a clear distinction should be drawn between 
Act^of 1601. aged and impotent persons unable to work, and 
idle and improvident ones who could work but 
refused to do so. The former were entitled to relief from their 
parishes ; the latter were to be compelled to apply themselves 
to labour, and even to be punished if they preferred the life of 
the tramp and beggar. This radical distinction drawn between 
the able-bodied pauper and the unfortunate victim of old age 
or disease was always kept in sight till the middle of the reign 
of George III. 

It was not until 1782, one of the troublous years of the old 

American war, that the first step in the wrong direction was 

made, by an Act of Parliament (generally called 
Gilbert's Act. ^ '. ^ ^.„ -an,., „ -, , 

from Its iramer Gilbert s Act) which allowed the 

guardians of the poor in each parish to find work near his 



THE OLD POOR-LAW. 85 

house for any person out of employment, and to add to his 
wages from the parish funds if he had not quite sufficient to 
maintain himself. This was followed fourteen 
years later by a far more disastrous piece of mis- change °?n 
placed philanthropy. In the early days of the great the Poor 
French war distress was rife everywhere, and one ^^' ^^^5'- 
of the methods taken to alleviate it was to establish a system 
of giving a regular system of " grants in aid of wages " for all 
poor labourers. A sliding-scale was fixed, by which, as the 
price of the loaf rose, more and more money was to be given 
to distressed parishioners : the larger the family the larger was 
to be the grant, in strict arithmetical progression. The idea 
was to establish a minimum wage for the labourer which he 
should not fail to get ; but, unfortunately, the device tended 
rather to fix a maximum for him, and that a very low one. 
For the farmers began at once to cut down the pay of the men 
they employed, in order that they might save their own money 
at the expense of the parish — every shilling that they took off 
being replaced by another which came out of the parish funds. 
This, of course, had still further bad effects, for the labourer 
who was not drawing relief-money found himself receiving less 
than his neighbour who was. Very soon this compelled him 
to put in his claim for a similar dole, till the vast majority of 
rural population was receiving poor-relief, and the free labourer 
became a rare exception. 

This disastrous system, tried first in Berkshire in 1795, 
gradually spread over the whole country. Its main result was 
that the farmers and their landlords pocketed all the immense 
profits which came from the high price of corn in the years 
of the French war ; the rural poor got no share of it. More- 
over, the system tended to general unthrift and improvidence 
among the country folk, because the sum of the dole received 
by each family was in proportion to its numbers ; the more 
children a man had, the more poor-relief was paid him. Hence 
he wished to have as many children as possible ; though he 



86 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

might not be able to maintain them himself, the parish would 
feed them for him. Early and improvident marriages became 
the rule rather than the exception. It will scarcely be credited 
that this unhappy state of things was viewed at first with com- 
placency by English statesmen. William Pitt himself once 
said that " parish reUef should be given as a matter of right 
or honour in proportion to the number of the recipient's 
children, so that a large family will become a blessing, not a 
curse ; and those who enrich their country with a number of 
children will always have a claim upon its assistance for their 
support." 

The result of this blind philanthropy was that the population 
of the rural parishes went up by leaps and bounds, quite irre- 
spective of any need for the existence of more hands for labour, 
till the poor-rate became an intolerable burden. Between 
1795 ^^^^ 1815 the annual amount of it rose from ;^2, 500,000 
to ;£5,4oo,ooo. After the war was over things grew even 
worse, for in the hard times of 1816-20, when prices fell and 
all trade stagnated, the population kept still increasing. Cases 
are quoted where parishes had to go bankrupt because the sum 
needed to feed their paupers actually exceeded their whole 
annual rateable value. In the year of the Reform Bill the 
maximum of misery was reached, the poor-rates rising to the 
sum of ;j{^7,ooo,ooo. That this reign of pauperism was artificial 
was soon shown when the government took the matter in 
hand. 

Lord Grey's Act of 1834 provided that a return should be 
made to the old principle of Queen Elizabeth's law of 1601 — 
Reform of ^^^^ out-door relief should only be given to the 
the Poor aged and destitute. All others demanding a dole 
Law. from the parish should be only granted it if they 

went into a workhouse — a hard test, but one which well dis- 
criminated between the idle and the really distressed, since 
no one wished to enter its walls unless he was compelled. The 
parishes were combined in groups called " unions," in order to 



THE NEW POOR-LAW OF 1834. 87 

provide one large and well-appointed workhouse rather than 
a number of small and inefficient ones. 

The immediate result of the New Poor Law was to force the 
farmers and other employers of labour to pay their men out 
of their own pockets, and not to depend on throw- r i*. r 
ing half the expense on to the parish. Thus the the Act of 
labouring poor did not really lose by the change ^^4' 
in the system ; but it fell hardly on the generation which was 
then in existence, since their habits and manners of thought 
and life had been formed under the old law. It was impossible 
to get rid of the tradition of unthrift and recklessness caused 
by forty years of maladministration. On the whole the con- 
dition of the countryside after 1835 ^^^^ decidedly less happy 
than it had been before 1795 • prices had gone up, while wages 
had not, owing mainly to the old Poor Law. Even after its 
repeal they have risen very gradually, and have always been 
so much lower than those obtainable in towns, that there has 
been a steady drain of population from rural into urban 
England. 

The financial results of Lord Grey's bill were admirable. 
The sum expended in poor-relief fell from the ;j{^7,ooo,ooo at 
which it stood in 1832 to ;,{^4,7oo,ooo in 1836. And what 
was far more important, the curse of pauperism was lifted from 
those of the rural poor who had the strength and independence 
of mind to fight for themselves. They were no longer 
practically compelled to live on charity, the most demoralizing 
of all manners of life. 

The second great measure of social reform associated with 

the name of Lord Grey is the abolition of Negro Slavery in our 

colonies. The slave trade had been put an end ^, , . 
,„.,,.. on , The aboli- 

to by the GrenviUe mmistry m 1807, but the tion of 

stoppage of the importation of fresh negroes did slavery in 

, J r .1 1 ■ ■ ■ • ^r the coloiiies. 

not make an end or the unhai)py mstitution itself. 

Public opinion in England had been growing more and more 

ashamed that it should linger on within our empire, and an active 



88 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

agitation against it had been going on for many years. But 
the West Indian planters refused to take the matter seriously, 
and scouted several proposals made to them for the gradual 
abolition of slavery, and even for its amelioration in details. 
Their uncompromising opposition to change of any kind only 
made their fate come upon them the more swiftly and surely. 
In spite of their angry clamour, a bill was passed by which all 
slaves were made free, though they were bound as apprentices 
to their former owners for three years, in order to tide over the 
general breaking up of social institutions which must follow 
emancipation. As was but just, the planters were given com- 
pensation, a sum of ;^2o,ooo,ooo being voted to them in the 
proportion of j[^22 \qs. for every man, woman, and child set 
free (August i, 1834). 

The emancipation of the negroes was an absolutely necessary 
act of elementary morality. Nothing could justify the survival 

_,, , of slavery far into the nineteenth century. But 

Effects of - ,. .. -, .0, 

abolition on irom the pomt of view of the prosperity of the 

the West West Indies, the change brought disastrous results. 
Indies. . 

The freed men were idle and disorderly; when 

the fear of the lash was removed, they did not take kindly to 

work. The sugar plantations of the West Indies have been 

gradually ruined by inefficient free labour, which cannot face 

foreign competition. In the first seven years after the abolition 

of slavery, the production of sugar fell off by more than a third, 

and that of coffee by nearly a half. Chinese and Hindoo 

coolies have been introduced to provide the plantation-labour 

which the free black refuses to carry on systematically. But 

no expedient has availed to save the West India planters from 

ruin, which has been almost completed in our own days by 

the iniquitous bounties on beet-sugar paid by France and other 

continental states. Till they are in some way removed or 

countervailed, it does not seem that prosperity can ever return 

to the West India Islands. 

The main trouble which the Grey cabinet endured in their 



LORD GREY RESIGNS. 89 

Otherwise prosperous years of office came from Ireland. Here 
Daniel O'Connell was hard at work with his Iceland— 
agitation for the repeal of the Union : but that The tithe 
proposal never came within the sphere of practical ^^^* 
politics, for no single person in Great Britain gave it any 
support. It was otherwise with a secondary matter to which 
O'Connell also set his hand. The Irish Catholics had a real 
grievance in that they were compelled to pay tithe for the 
support of the Protestant Church of Ireland. Over two-thirds 
of the land there was hardly any Protestant population, and 
the rectors and vicars had no congregations. They were 
largely non-resident, as they had no duties or work in their 
parishes. That the Romanists should be required to maintain 
them seemed iniquitous. Flushed with their success in the 
matter of Catholic Emancipation, the leaders of the peasantry 
started the " Tithe War " — a campaign against the clergy of 
the State Church and all who paid them their much-grudged 
dues. 

Outrages were frequent, and riots broke out whenever the 
forcible collection of tithes was persisted in by the govern- 
ment. Lord Grey prepared remedial measures 

. , , . , , A Coercion 
to do away with the grievance, but also very ^^t passed 

properly passed a " Coercion Act " to put down Lord Grey 
the rioters and ruffians who were terrorizing the 
countryside. For this he was bitterly assailed by O'Connell. 
There followed unfortunate dissensions within the cabinet as 
to the exact way in which the repression of violence and the 
removal of grievances should be combined. Finding many of 
his colleagues opposed to him, Lord Grey resigned; he was 
now an old man, and too worn out to face a crisis (July, 1834). 
The Whig party replaced their worthy old chief by Lord 
Melbourne, one of the Canningites of 1828. But the king 
thought that the Tories should be given their chance, and 
invited Sir Robert Peel to form a ministry. He did so, and 
dissolved parliament; but Toryism had not recovered from 



QO ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the dreadful blow which had been dealt it by the Reform Bill. 
In the new parliament the Whigs were in a decided majority, 
and Sir Robert had to resign after having held office for no 
more than three months (December, 1834 — March, 1835). 

Lord Melbourne then returned to power, bringing with him 
nearly all his old colleagues who had served Lord Grey. His 
Th M 1- ministry lasted from 1835 to 1841, and forms 
bourne one of the most uninteresting periods in the 

ministry. history of the century ; there have been probably 

, no six years between 1800 and 1900 whose annals have been 
more thoroughly forgotten. Their political history is mainly 
occupied by two agitations which led to nothing, and whose 
details have grown tedious — O'Connell's " Repeal " move- 
ment and the " Chartist " troubles. Both seemed serious 
enough at the time, but died out, and were not renewed for 
another generation. 

The one event of first-rate importance which occurred during 
the rule of the Melbourne cabinet was the death of King 
Wihiam IV. on June 20, 1837. His two daughters 
of Queen had died in infancy, so that the succession devolved 

Victoria— on his niece, Alexandrina Victoria, the only child 
separated of his next brother, Edward Duke of Kent. All 
from Eng- through King William's reign the eyes of the 
nation had been eagerly fixed on this young 
princess, for her life was the only one which stood between 
the crown and her uncle, Ernest Duke of Cumberland, the 
most unpopular and worthless of the sons of George III. It 
was a great relief to the whole people to see her ascend the 
throne at the age of eighteen, in health and vigour that gave 
every prospect of a long reign. Hanover, where the succession 
was entailed in the male line, passed away to the Duke of 
Cumberland, who made himself as much disliked there as he 
had been in England. The Electorate had been united to the 
English crown for 123 years; its separation was an unquali- 
fied benefit, for it had perpetually involved Great Britain in 



ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. 91 

i 

countless problems of continental policy in which we had no 
real concern. 

The admirable sovereign who still wears the crown of the 
United Kingdom, after a reign unparalleled for length and 
prosperity among all the annals of her prede- 
cessors, was little known to her subjects in 1837. the^aueen^ 
She had been brought up very simply — almost, 
indeed, in seclusion — by her mother, Victoria of Coburg, the 
Dowager-duchess of Kent, who had been determined that she 
should not court any of the invidious popularity that comes to 
heirs apparent who show themselves too conspicuously during 
their predecessors' lifetime. But as her people came to know 
her, they recognized that they were fortunate in possessing the 
most blameless ruler that Great Britain has ever seen, the 
pattern and model for all constitutional sovereigns that ever 
wore a crown. She was conspicuously free from all the 
hereditary faults of her family ; simple in her tastes, straight- 
forward in act and speech, full of consideration for others, 
always striving to do her duty as a sovereign and a woman, 
she soon won and always retained her subjects' esteem and 
admiration. 

Her personal character has been not the least among the 

influences which have led to a general rise in the morals of 

English society during her reign. Married four 

years after her accession to her cousin Albert of ♦uf^'^"^^^ 
•' the queen 

Saxe-Coburg, she gave the world an example of with Albert 
perfect domestic happiness, combined with the "robur^" 
unremitting discharge of public duties. To those 
who remembered the court of George IV., the change made in 
a few years was astonishing. If there was ever any chance in 
the first quarter of the century that the monarchy might go 
down before the incoming flood of democratic ideas, the 
queen's character and conduct soon averted the danger. Nor 
can his meed of praise be denied to her husband, who dis- 
charged with rare self-restraint the difficult functions of a 



92 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURV. 

Prince Consort. In spite of the vague distrust with which he 
was at first regarded, owing to his foreign birth, he showed 
that he was able to adapt himself to English political ideas 
and usages. In spite of many temptations, he never made 
himself a party man or allowed his name to be used for party 
purposes. 

The change of reign, therefore, had no appreciable effect on 
the fortunes of the Melbourne ministry. If at first a few 

bigoted Tories grumbled that the young queen 
The ministry might become a tool in the hands of the Whigs, 
j^gjj_'pj^g " they were soon undeceived. The main difficulties 
tithe grie- of the Melbourne cabinet sprang from the fact 
removed. ^^^^ ^^^ majority which they commanded in the 

House of Commons was very small, except when 
it was reinforced by O'Connell and his " tail," as the horde of 
not very respectable satellites whom he brought to Westminster 
was often called.. At a pinch the Irish would vote with the 
government to keep out the Tories, but in ordinary times they 
preferred to worry it, in order to make their power felt, and 
to screw " Repeal," if possible, out of the Whigs. Under these 
circumstances it is not surprising that the days of the Melbourne 
cabinet were singularly unmarked by legislation of any kind, 
good or bad. The only really important measure which was 
passed was one to redeem Lord Grey's pledge of 1834 on the 
matter of the Irish tithe, from which the Roman Catholic 
peasantry were now wholly relieved — the payment being trans- 
ferred to their landlords, who were mainly members of the 
Established Church. 

The most marked feature of the years 1835-41 in the internal 
history of England was the fruitless " Chartist " agitation. 

Though it took a political shape, this movement 
Charter. ^^^ really social in its character. It was caused 

by the disappointment felt by the labouring masses 
at the small profit which they had got out of the passage of the 
Reform Bill and the advent of the Whigs to office. They had 



THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT. 93 

vaguely believed that a millennium of prosperity would follow 
the purification of the House of Commons. When disappointed 
in this, they did not take warning, and reflect that the possession 
of political rights does not necessarily bring happiness or 
prosperity in its train. The demagogues who led them per- 
suaded themselves that all would go well if only further reforms 
on more democratic lines were carried out. They therefore 
drew up the " People's Charter," from which their followers 
became known as Chartists; it demanded six concessions 
from the government : (i) universal suffrage was to replace the 
jQio household suffrage introduced in 1832 j (2) voting was 
to be by ballot; (3) members of parliament were to receive 
a salary ; (4) all the existing boroughs and counties were to be 
recast into electoral districts of equal population ; (5) no quali- 
fication of property was to be required from members of 
parliament; (6) parliaments were to be annual, instead of 
sitting for seven years. If all these demands had been granted 
in a lump, they would not have really done anything towards 
helping the Chartists to higher wages or shorter hours of work, 
which were in reality the aims for which they were ready to 
fight. An outspoken popular speaker put the case clearly 
when he declared in 1838 that "the principle of the Charter 
means that every working man in the land has the right to a 
good coat, a good hat, a good dinner, no more work than will 
keep him in health, and as much wages as will keep him in 
plenty." Practically, in spite of its purely political form, the 
Chartist agitation was only an earlier shape of the demand for 
the " living wage " of which we hear so much to-day. 

Of the six points of the Charter, the second, fourth, and fifth 
have been practically conceded for many years ; the first is not 
far from completion since 1884, when all house- p . 

holders and most lodgers were enfranchised. No the Chartist 
one can seriously suppose that the payment of ^S^^^^^o"- 
members would revolutionize the character of parliament, and 
it is now universally conceded that annual dissolutions and 



94 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

general elections would be an unqualified nuisance. Yet over 
this programme, perfectly incapable of producing the social 
benefits which were desired, the masses of the great manu- 
facturing towns expended a vast amount of sound and fury 
between the years 1838 and 1848. They never had any 
leaders of weight or note, capable of guiding them with firm- 
ness and keeping them out of mischief. Hence they soon 
turned to aimless and destructive rioting, and thereby caused 
the whole middle class to rally round the government and 
determine that the " Charter " should on no account be con- 
ceded. In a riot at Birmingham in 1839, the damage done 
was so wanton and malicious, that the Duke of Wellington 
declared that it exceeded anything that he had seen in the 
towns carried by assault during the Peninsular War. At 
Newport, in Monmouthshire, a mob of five thousand Welsh 
miners armed with scythes and fowling-pieces seized the town, 
and had to be fired on by the soldiery. Such scenes made any 
further democratic reforms impossible, and though the Chartists 
kept bombarding parliament with monster petitions for the 
next nine years, no government, Whig or Tory, showed the least 
signs of listening to their threats. When they grew very violent 
in 1848, under the influence of news of revolutions on the 
Continent, 200,000 special constables appeared in the streets 
of London to aid the armed forces of the crown, and the 
Chartist meetings collapsed ignominiously. 

The Melbourne government went out in August, 1841, 
and the Tory party, after eleven years of powerlessness, were 

once more in office. Under their new leader, 
the 1 ory or Sir Robert Peel, they were a very different body 
Conservative from their ancestors of the days before the Reform 

Bill. Their wish to break with the reactionary 
traditions of Addington and Castlereagh is shown by the fact 
that they had now adopted the new name of " Conservatives." 
Their programme was no longer unintelligent resistance to all 
change, and while opposing the violent designs of the Chartists 



SIR ROBERT PEEL. ' 95 

and the Irish, they were quite wilHng to adopt cautious 
measures of advance in both constitutional and social ledsla- 
tion. The party, in fact, was led by chiefs who represented the 
Canningite Tories of 1828, and who were no longer divided 
by any very wide gulf from their Whig opponents. It was 
the same with the bulk of their adherents : the Chartists had 
frightened the middle classes into the Conservative ranks by 
tens of thousands. The feeble Melbourne government had 
entirely failed to keep together the great army which had won 
the victory of the Reform Bill. Peel himself was 
a commanding figure, more fitted to lead a great p , 
party than any statesman who had appeared since 
the death of William Pitt. He was the son of a wealthy 
Lancashire manufacturer, not one of the old ring of Tory 
landholders. His enlightened views on social and economic 
questions made him popu'ar with the middle classes. In his 
foreign policy he was as firm as his rival Palmerston. As a 
financier and an administrator he was unrivalled in his age — 
finance, indeed, had always been the weak point of the Whigs. 
He was perhaps a little autocratic and impatient with the 
slower and more antiquated members of his party, but no one 
could have foreseen in 1841 that his rule was not to be a long 
one, and that he was ultimately destined to break up, not to 
consolidate, the Conservative party. 

His firm rule kept down the Chartists, and caused the final 
collapse of the " Repeal " movement in Ireland. O'Connell 
had been promising his countrymen Home Rule 
for many years and with most eloquent verbosity. Repeal move- 
but they grew tired when all his talk ended in "J^",^ i" 

Parliament. 
nothing. The installation in ofince of a Tory 

government with a crushing majority in the Commons, left him 
no chance of using the votes of his " tail " to any effect. He 
had always set his face against insurrection and outrage, and 
when peaceful means became obviously useless to attain his 
end, both he and his followers fell into a state of depression. 



96 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The Peel government did not take his agitation too seriously : 
he was arrested for treasonable language used at a monster 
meeting at Tara in 1843, but the House of Lords reversed his 
condemnation on a technical point, and no further proceedings 
were taken against him. But his following broke up, the 
majority sinking into apathy, while the minority resolved to 
appeal, in the old fashion of 1798, to armed insurrection — a 
method even more hopeless for gaining their end than monster 
meetings. But it was not till five years later that they made 
their attempt. 

Meanwhile, Peel passed many admirable laws for the benefit 
of the working classes. His Mines Acts (1842) prohibited the 

labour of women and children underground ; his 
^j,tg_ Factory Acts (1844) restricted the employment of 

Financial the young in factories, and appointed inspectors 
' to see to their sanitation and safety. He also set 
right the finances of the kingdom, which Lord Melbourne 
had left in a very unsatisfactory state, and did much for the 
introduction of Free-trade in commerce. In one year he 
reduced the import duties on no less than 750 articles of daily 
use, ranging from live cattle and eggs to hemp and timber. 
The loss in revenue this raused he made up by imposing an 
Income Tax, which he promised to abolish at an early date. 
He lost office ere the time came, and his successors have never 
made very serious efforts to redeem his pledge. 

In foreign affairs the Peel cabinet had many troubles to 
face, but came safely through most of them. The disastrous 

Afghan war,* a legacy from Lord Melbourne's 
Sikh wars— time, was brought to a not inglorious end. The 
Difficulties first Sikh war, an even greater trial of our strength 

in the East, finally ended in complete victory. 
Two quarrels with France seemed likely for a moment to end 
in hostilities ; both were provoked by the arrogant policy of 
the ministers of Louis Philippe. In 1844 the French laid 

* See chapter on India and the Colonies. 



THE SPANISH MARRIAGES. 97 

violent hands on, and deported, our consul at Tahiti, in Poly- 
nesia. Firmly faced and threatened with war, they apologized 
and paid him compensation. The second quarrel was more 
serious : in order to extend his influence over Spain, the old 
French king designed to marry one of his sons to the girl-queen 
Isabella. Finding that this proposal met with general resent- 
ment in Europe, and especially in England, he determined to 
secure his purpose in a more roundabout way. He married 
his son, the Duke of Montpensier, to the queen's 

sister, her natural heiress, while he bribed the Spanish 

' marriages. 

Spanish court and ministry to give the hand of 

their unfortunate young sovereign to her cousin Don Francisco, 
a wretched weakling whom she detested (1846). He intended 
that Montpensier should be the practical ruler of the country 
as long as Isabella lived, and succeed to her throne when she 
died. This villainous plot against a helpless girl succeeded 
for the moment, but failed in the end, because Louis Philippe 
lost his own kingdom in 1848, and so was not able to support 
his son. It was carried out in the last months of Peel's power, 
and the resenting of its successful accomplishment passed to 
the Whig cabinet which followed him. Lord Palmerston broke 
sharply with France, but did not press the quarrel to the point 
of war. It caused, however, a final rupture with the French 
king, with whom we had hitherto been on rather friendly 
terms, and the fall of the old intriguer in 1848 was welcomed 
by most Englishmen as a righteous judgment on his sins. 

Peel's later years of office (1845-6) were made unhappy by 
a domestic calamity of appalling violence— the dreadful potato- 
famine in Ireland. In other countries the complete 
destruction of the potato crop by blight in two . fj^j^^jj^g 
successive years would have caused nothing more 
than serious inconvenience. But in Ireland half the nation de- 
pended on the root. The population had been multiplying with 
appalling rapidity ; in thirty years it had risen from five to eight 
millions, and this not owing to flourishing trade or manufactures, 

u 



98 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

or to any great increase in the amount of land cultivated. 

The landlords had been permitting their tenants to cut up their 

farms into smaller and smaller patches, till an average holding 

did not suffice to support its occupier, who had to make up the 

deficit by seeking harvest work in England during the summer. 

Several millions of people were living on these wretched patches 

of ground, always on the edge of starvation, and sustained only 

by their potatoes. On such an indigent population two years 

of blight brought absolute famine. Before the disaster was 

fully realized, thousands had perished from actual hunger, or 

from the fevers and dysentery following on bad and insufficient 

food. The workhouses were crammed till they could hold no 

more, and outdoor relief did not yet exist in Ireland. Far too 

late, the government began to establish public soup-kitchens, 

and pour in food of all kinds. But it was long before relief 

could penetrate to out-of-the-way districts, and the famine was 

prolonged for many months. 

Sir Robert Peel, deeply impressed by the horrors of the 

situation, came to the conclusion that the best remedy would 

^. ^ be the abolition of the protective duties on home- 

The Corn ... 

Law ques- grown corn, which rendered difficult m such crises 

^^°"* the importation of foreign food. After much 

thought, he resolved to introduce a bill providing for the 
abolition of the Corn Laws in 1849, and introducing for 
the three intervening years a low scale of duties. This bold 
step caused immediate division in the Tory camp ; the great 
landowners, who formed such a large and powerful section of 
the party, were convinced that free trade in corn meant the ruin 
of English agriculture, and many of them resolved to follow 
Peel no longer. Several of his colleagues in the cabinet re- 
signed, and many scores of members in the Commons announced 
that they should vote against their great chiefs bill. The dis- 
contented faction w^as headed by Lord George Bentinck and 
Benjamin Disraeli, who now first appeared prominently in 
politics. He was the son of a Jewish man of letters, and had 



PEEL ABOLISHES THE CORN-LAWS. 99 

hitherto been regarded as little more than an ingenious char- 
latan, though his somewhat bombastic and turgid novels showed 
plenty of cleverness and wit. Now, by organizing the opponents 
of Peel into a solid body, he showed that he could do some- 
thing in practical politics. 

The repeal of the Corn Laws was carried by Peel only with 
the assistance of the votes of his opponents, the Whigs, by 337 
votes to 240— the minority including two-thirds 
of the Tory party (May 16, 1846). Two months Repeal of the 
later the Protectionists took their revenge on their _Break-uD 
former chief by uniting with the Whigs to throw of the Con- 

e p J- TT O f" 1 TT ^ 

out a Bill mtended to put down agrarian crime party, 
in Ireland (July, 1846). Peel at once resigned. 
His enlightened and courageous action with regard to the Corn 
Laws had not only doomed him to sit in opposition for the rest 
of his life, but had hopelessly broken up the Conservative party. 
It was now divided into two irreconcilable sections, for Peel 
could not forgive the rebels who had turned him out of office, 
while the Protectionists looked upon him as a traitor who had 
cast away one of the main planks of the party platform. Such 
hard words had passed between them that they could not 
easily forgive each other. Hence it is not strange that the 
Conservatives were destined never to enjoy a real parliamentary 
majority again for nearly thirty years. 

Meanwhile, the Whigs returned to office under Lord John 
Russell, the introducer of the Reform Bill of 1832, an adroit 
party politician, full of buoyant self-confidence, t j j u 
but not a man of any great mark or originality. Russell's 
Palmerston, a much more notable figure, resumed "^^"istry. 
his place at the Foreign Office, which he was now to hold with- 
out any appreciable break for twenty years more, till his death 
in 1865. The new government had to take over two trouble- 
some legacies from their predecessors, the Irish famine and 
the still-lingering Chartist agitation. 

In dealing with the former, they did not show themselves much 



loo ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

more effective than the Conservatives — there was still a vast 

mortality from fever and dysentery in 1846, which 

Irish policyof ^-^[g]^^ have been prevented by really active 

ment — Evic- measures of relief. In the following year, when 

tions an ^j^^ stress of the famine was over, the Irish land- 

emigration. ' 

lords tried to free themselves from the danger of 
such another disaster, by suddenly reversing their former policy 
of multiplying small tenants on diminutive holdings. They 
began at once to consolidate the small farms into large ones 
by evicting their weakest and poorest tenants. This process 
was carried out in many cases with inconsiderate haste and 
reckless cruelty, families which had been brought low by the 
famine being cast out on the roadside by thousands. The 
greater part of them ultimately struggled across the Atlantic 
to the United Statesj The policy was the correct one from 
the point of view of economy, but it was worked out with inex- 
cusable disregard for the sufferings of the evicted. 

The general indignation felt for the clearances of 1847 was 
the main cause of the Irish rising of 1848. A large body of 
Smith O'Connell's former followers had some years 

O'Brien's before seceded from him, because they insisted 
insurrection. ^^^^ armed rebellion was justifiable, while he 
had been all for peaceful agitation. Now they struck their 
blow, and proved themselves (July, 1848) utterly unable to do 
anything serious. Smith O'Brien, an enthusiastic and well- 
meaning member of parliament, was their chosen leader, and 
proved a most incompetent general and organizer. He 
collected 2000 armed men, but his campaign ended in a 
ludicrous fiasco, the " Army of the Irish Republic " being 
dispersed by fifty constables after a scuffle in a cabbage-garden 
near Bonlagh, in Tipperary. Smith O'Brien and the other 
chiefs were tried and condemned for high treason, but the 
government wisely and mercifully gave them no further punish- 
ment than a few years' deportation to the colonies, and granted 
them " tickets-of-leave " lon^ ere their sentence was out. 



THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1848. lOi 

The end of the Chartist agitation had fallen a few weeks 

before the Irish rising, and had been equally ignominious. 

The London Chartists, having^ resolved to. march c- , ^ ,, 

' ^ End of the 

on the Houses of Parliament and present a Chartist 
monster petition for the " six points," were for- ^S^^^^^^^' 
bidden to approach Westminster. They declared their inten- 
tion of forcing their way thither, but the government called out 
the troops, and 200,000 special constables answered the appeal 
for civil aid. Hearing of this army ready to meet them, the 
Chartists very wisely, but rather tamely, went home, after sending 
their vast petition to the Commons in three cabs. The fact 
that April 14, 1848, was a very rainy day seems to have had a 
good deal to do with this absurd fiasco. 

The ease with which sedition and rebellion had been crushed 
in the United Kingdom in 1848, contrasted strangely with 
the height to which they rose on the Continent in d , . • 
the same year. I'he hidden fires which had once ary agitation 
before flamed out in 1830 now burst forth again ^" Europe, 
with even greater violence, and every state except Russia was 
soon in a conflagration. In Italy and Hungary the insur- 
rections were purely national and directed against the foreign 
yoke of the House of Habsburg. In Germany and France 
they were partly political, partly social in character, and aimed 
at a sweeping change in the constitution in the direction of 
liberahsm. In Spain they were purely factious, and only rose 
from the desperate strife of ambitious party leaders. 

The trouble started in France, where Louis Philippe in his old 
age was growing forgetful of his position as a constitutional 
king, and after eighteen years of fairly successful 
rule thought himself firm upon his throne. He phliinp^^"^^ 
set hmiself to oppose an agitation for the extension 
of the franchise, and by obstinately repressing all conces- 
sions, and putting down the meetings which the liberal party 
organized, provoked widespread discontent. The opposition, 
which had at first been peaceable and orderly, was gradually 



102 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

encouraged into violence by the mixture of obstinacy and vacil- 
lation which Louis Philippe displayed. On February 24 riots 
broke out in Paris : the king declined to allow the prompt and 
stern use of. force, and tried to conciliate the rioters. But 
finding him so weak, they cried aloud for his deposition, and 
Louis Philippe, with a feebleness strange in one who had shown 
himself a good soldier on the field of battle, abdicated and 
fled in disguise. His family were sent into exile after him, 
and the almost bloodless insurrection ended in the creation of 
a republic. A show of firmness would have averted the 
revolution, for the middle classes had no desire for it, and the 
army would have obeyed orders if only they had been given 
at the right moment. The republicans, too, were divided 
among themselves, for the moderate wing was desperately 
afraid of the extremists, who were deeply imbued with 
socialistic views, and wished to introduce all manner of experi- 
ments in the direction of state-socialism. There was street- 
fighting in Paris before the Republic was four months old, and 
ere the year was out a President was put at the helm of the 
state, with the avowed object of suppressing anarchy and civil 
war by the use of armed force. 

This " saviour of society " was most unwisely chosen ; the 
man to whom France entrusted her safety was Louis Napoleon, 
the nephew of Napoleon I., an adventurer who 
Napoleon. ^^^ already headed two hair-brained risings 
against Louis Philippe on avowed imperialist 
lines. To suppose that such a personage — who loved to style 
himself " the nephew of his uncle," and was the heir of the old 
Bonapartist tradition — would settle down into the mere president 
of a Conservative republic was absurd. Louis Napoleon from 
the first set himself to get all the threads of power into his 
hands, in order to make himself an autocrat at the earliest 
opportunity. 

Meanwhile, the French revolution of March, 1848, had set 
Europe on fire. In Italy there was a general insurrection 



THE ITALIAN RISING OF 1848. 103 

against the Austrian yoke, headed by Charles Albert, King 

of Sardinia. But the peninsula was not yet 

r ^-u .. ^-L, • ^ ' 4.U • Insurrection 

ripe for liberty ; the insurgents in the various ^^ Italy. 

regions were full of local patriotism, and many 
of them dreamed of nothing but restoring the old republics of 
the Middle Ages. They failed to give each other loyal aid, 
and were betrayed by their princes, who saw that Italian liberty 
would mean Italian unity and their own expulsion. The pope 
and King of Naples contrived to paralyze the armies of 
Southern Italy, and the Sardinians, who were left almost unaided, 
proved not strong enough to expel the Austrians. After two 
campaigns, Charles Albert was crushed and compelled to 
abdicate (March, 1849)^ while the gallant but useless defence 
of Venice and Rome by local patriots, who had declared in 
favour of republicanism, had no effect on the general current 
of the war, and only served to prolong its miseries. With 
the fall of Rome (July, 1849) the struggle ended : the 
City of the Popes fell, not before the Austrians, but before a 
French force sent out by Louis Napoleon to 
" restore order " in the Papal States. Thus the ment crushed 
nominal French republic showed its real character hy the 
by dealing the cotiJ> de grcice to the republicans of 
the sister country. A Bonaparte could not be a true lover of 
liberty. 

The triumph of the Austrians in Italy seems most extra- 
ordinary, when we rememl)er that they were at the same time 
oppressed by a democratic rising in Vienna and a . . 
great national rebellion in Hungary. The insurgents Austria and 
of the capital were put down after a severe struggle Hungary 
(October, 1S48); but the Hungarians, under the 
dictator Kossuth, made head against the imperial armies, 
inflicted several defeats on them, and drove them back into 
Austria. Thereupon the Czar Nicholas of Russia, fearing that 
Poland would follow Hungary's example, poured his armies 
across the Carpathians to the aid of the young Emperor Francis 



104 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

Joseph, and crushed the insurgents by force of numbers 

(August, 1849). 

In Germany the troubles had been widespread, but not so 

bloody as in the south and east. The King of Prussia, driven 

for a moment from his capital, returned at the. 

movements head of an army and frightened the insurgents into 

in the Ger- disi'crsing without loss of life (November, 1848). 
m3,n states 

The German diet at Frankfort, which met with 

vague ideas of unifying the numerous states of the Fatherland 
into a single empire, went to pieces without having accomplished 
anything, for no two delegates agreed together in their views, 
and the conservative influences were strong. An attempt had 
been made to rouse national enthusiasm by an attack on Den- 
mark, to free the German duchies of Holstein and Schleswig, 
from their vassalage to Frederick VII., but it miscarried hope- 
lessly (June, 1848), and a democratic rising in South Germany 
was easily suppressed. When Austria's hands were freed by the 
end of the Italian and Hungarian revolts, the rest of Germany 
sank back into its former dei)endence on her. An attempt to 
set up Prussia in her place as head of a new German Empire 
(February, 1849) had come to nought, for King Frederick 
William IV. refused the proffered crown, seeing that by accept- 
ing it he must become involved in a war with Austria, and pro- 
bably with Russia also, when those powers had crushed Charles 
Albert and Kossuth. 

Lord Palmerston had a task of no mean difficulty when con- 
fronted with all the troubles of 1848-9. His own sympathy. 
Attitude ^"^ ^^^^ °^ ^^^^ English people, lay with the 

of Lord Italians and Hungarians. But it was obviously 

a mers on. ^^^^ ^^^. ]3ygii^gg5 ^q interfere directly in foreign 

constitutional and national struggles, in which we had no 
immediate concern. Palmerston let it be known that he would 
" take advantage of all opportunities to press counsels of order 
and peace on the contending parties," but that he would do 
nothing more. This policy laid him open to the charge of 



REACTION TRIUMPHANT IN EUROPE. 105 

using strong language, but not backing it up by strong action, 
and be was bitterly attacked by tbe friends of Italy and 
Hungary for giving them no more than fair words. But it is 
quite certain that if he had entered on a crusade in favour of 
national rights and the liberty of peoples, we should have found 
ourselves engaged in war with the greater part of the govern- 
ments of Europe. No help would have come from France, 
the other power which ought to have favoured the liberal side, 
for Louis Napoleon acted always as a self-seeking autocrat, and 
not as the president of a republic. 

It was a hard day for the friends of liberty, when, in 1849, 
the last struggles of the insurgents of Italy and Hungary were 
put down by the Austrian and Russian bayonets. But the end 
was not yet ; as Palmerston observed, " opinions may in the 
end prove stronger than armies." Before he died in 1865, he 
saw his prophecy fulfilled in part, and ere a quarter of a century 
had passed, Italy was united, and Hungary autonomous. 

Meanwhile England had passed with the minimum of friction 
and trouble through the years which had been so disastrous to 
the Continental states. The two lingering dangers. 
Chartism and Irish rebellion, which had remained and confi- 
as an incubus on men's minds for the last ten dence in 
years, had been faced and found to be mere 
empty terrors. Nothing more was heard of them, and it was 
twenty years before the discontents of which they were the 
outward sign again came to the front. The political horizon > 
was more clear of clouds than at any previous time in the 
century, and the commercial prosperity of the United Kingdom 
was very marked — whether it came, as some said, from the 
triumph of the free-trade principles which Peel had introduced, 
or, as others maintained, from the confidence which had been 
inspired in the world by England's easy and triumphant passage 
through the troubles of 1848. There was a general feeling of 
buoyancy and optimism in the air, and a widespread confidence 
in the future, j It may appear strange to us, who remember the 



Io6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

thwarted hopes of 1848-9, that EngHsh pubHc opinion thought 
that the Continent had settled down into quiet. But it is 
certain that the most confident language was used concerning 
the future reign of peace and goodwill among the nations of 
Europe. The success of the first great inter- 
tionof 1851. national exhibition, held in London in 185 1, was, 
by a rather shallow train of thought, interpreted 
as a sign of the advent of a new era, in which war was to be 
abandoned as an anachronism, and the nations were to con- 
tend against each other only in the peaceful field of industry, 
settling all their disputes by arbitration. 

This foolish confidence was first shaken by the events of 
December, 1851. Louis Napoleon, showing himself in his true 
The Second ^^^o^^^s after three years of dissembling, suddenly 
empire in suppressed the French republic. He had packed 
the army and the civil service with his hired 
partisans till all was ready for a coup d'etat. He struck 
promptly and most unscrupulously ; the republican leaders 
were thrown into prison, their partisans who attempted resist- 
ance were shot down by hundreds in the streets (December 2), 
and a military dictatorship was set up. Twelve months later 
the usurper declared himself emperor under the name of 
Napoleon III. (1852). 

The President's stroke for power brought about, by a curious 

chance, the dismissal of Palmerston from office. The great 

„ . . foreign minister had more than once of late years 

Recognition ,. ,, ,. ,^^ _ .-' 

of Napoleon drawn dow^n rebuke on himself, for taking impor- 

III. by Lord tant political steps without giving either the queen 
Palmerston. , • „ r - . , 

or his colleagues fair warning. Now he offended 

them more bitterly than ever, by notifying to the French 

ambassador his recognition of the new government, without 

taking the trouble to obtain the previous sanction of the 

sovereign and the ministry. His conduct was indeed deserving 

of much blame, for the recognition of the new Bonapartist 

regime was not a thing to be lightly and heedlessly granted ; 



PALMERSTON DISMISSED. I07 

but Palmerston was glad to see a strong government super- 
seding the sham republic of 1848-51, and seems to have 
determined to force the hands of his colleagues. 

Lord John Russell, furious at such an act of insubordination, 
dismissed Palmerston from office (December 19, 1851). But he 
had not foreseen that he was thereby likely to 
bring about his own fall. The late foreign minister Palmerston's 
played on him the same trick that the Pro- p^jj ^f 
tectionists had played on Peel in 1846. A few Lord John 
weeks later (February 16) Palmerston led a con- ministrf. 
siderable number of his friends and supporters 
into the opposition lobby, to vote with the Conservatives 
against a Militia Bill which Lord John had introduced. The 
measure was rejected, and the Whig minority had to resign 
(February 16, 1852). 

If Sir Robert Peel had still been alive, the Tories would 
have had a chance of recovering their ancient power. But 
that great statesman had been killed by a fall from 
his horse on Constitution Hill (June 29, 1850). r^ Peel— 
His party was still broken up by the feud Lord Derby's 
between Free-traders and Protectionists, and the 
two halves would not co-operate with each other. The queen 
called on Lord Derby, the head of the latter section, to form 
a ministry, which he and Disraeli (Lord George Bentinck, their 
other leader, was already dead) proceeded to attempt. They 
held office for a few months (March to November, 1852), but 
soon had to retire, as they did not at any time possess a 
majority in Parliament. A combination of the Whigs and the 
Peelite Conservatives swept them out of power before they 
had any opportunity of leaving their mark on English policy. 
Their short term of office, indeed, is only remembered for 
Disraeli's ingenious financial schemes, whereby he for the first 
time won the respect of the country, and came to be considered 
as something more than an able adventurer. It is also worth 
noting that while they were in power the great Duke of 



lo8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Wellington passed away (September 14), having long survived 
Death of the ^^^ ^^^ other statesmen of the generation which 
Duke of had fought through the Napoleonic wars and 

Wellington. ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^-^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ followed them. In his 

later years his political errors had been forgotten, and he 
enjoyed the respect and esteem of the whole nation, which 
only remembered, when thinking of him, the glories of Assaye, 
Salamanca, and Waterloo. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY VICTORIAN ENGLAND. 
1852. 

When we survey the nineteenth century from its last year but 
one, the first fact that strikes us is that its earlier half was a 
time of much more rapid and sweeping change 
than its second. We have now in our narrative f^g^fi^rj Uaif 
passed the dividing - line between them, and of the nine- 
reached the year 1852. The most cursory glance ^^^" ^^"' . 
is enough to show us that the difference between 
the England of 1852 and the England of 1899 is far less than 
that between the England of 1801 and that of 1852. Almost 
all the great movements, social, economic, and c^^: 1 j 
political, which have given the century its cha- political 
racter, were well developed before the time of "movements, 
the Crimean War. It is much the same with literature — all 

the greater writers of the century had started on , . 
,. ,- , - ^ ... Literature, 

their career beiore that date. In matters religious, 

the High Church movement in England — the main feature 

of the century — had been well started : the 

disruption of the Scottish Church into the Estab- movements 

lished and the Free Kirks had been completed. 

It is the same with the great discoveries and inventions 

which have changed the face of the land and 

the character of everyday life. The England of discoveries 

1801 knew not the steamboat and the railway, and inven- 

the electric telegraph and illuminating powers of 



no ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

gas; the England of 1852 was habitually employing them all, 
though it had still much to learn in the way of perfecting 
their use. 

The greatest change of all, the transformation of the United 
Kingdom from a state mainly dependent on agriculture to an 

essentially manufacturing community, is also the 
Growth of work of the first half of the nineteenth century, 
luring and ^^ have already spoken of the enormous develop- 
urban popu- ment of trade during the years of the great 
trade. French war, but the prosperity of the landed 

interest had also been very great as long as that 
struggle lasted, and at its end the number of the inhabitants of 
the realm more or less directly interested in agriculture was 
still reckoned to exceed that engaged in manufactures. The 
great towns contained less than twenty per cent, of the popu- 
lation of England, while by 1852 they counted nearly forty per 
cent., and at the present day have risen to more than half of 
the total.* It was the gradual and silent change in propor- 
tion between the tillers of the soil and the townsmen, between 
181 5 and 1840, that made Free Trade inevitable. When the 
producers of food-stuffs had become a clear minority, it was 
absurd that the large majority to whom cheap corn was 
essential, should be taxed for their benefit. The landed 
aristocracy strove long to retain for agriculture its privileged 
position, and tried to cover the material benefits which pro- 
tection brought to themselves, by patriotic talk as to the neces- 
sity for keeping England self-sufficing in her food-supply. 
When it became clear that population was growing too fast for 
the kingdom ever to be able to supply all its own needs, so 
that some amount of foreign aid must always be called in, the 

* In 1891 the purely rural "Sanitary Districts" of England had only 
11,076,315 inhabitants out of a total population of 29,000,000, The total 
of the great towns in 1811 had been about 1,850,000 out of a total popu- 
lation of 10,000,000. In 185 1 they had risen to be over 6,000,000 out of 
a total of 17,000,000. 



INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. Ill 

cry for protection had obviously become impossible and effete. 
When the Derby ministry of 1852 made no open attempt to 
undo Peel's Free Trade legislation, it was realized that the old 
system was quite dead. 

We have pointed out in an earlier chapter that the develop- 
ment of new mechanical inventions, and the improvement of 
machinery, which gave our British manufactures c+.gajn ^nd 
their first start, mostly date from the end of the the transport 
eighteenth century, and were already at work ^ &oo^s. 
during the years of the great French war. But the application 
of steam to the transport of goods, both by water in the sea- 
going steam-vessel, and by land in the railway train, gave an 
enormous impetus to our factories. These novelties start the 
one from the second and the other from the third decade of 
the century. Down to 18 12, heavy goods could ^..^ ,,. 
only be transported within the kingdom by road of inland 
or by canal. Both methods were slow and costly, ^^^"sport. 
the former especially so; the canal system had of late been 
much developed, but there are many parts of the land in 
which physical conditions made the construction of canals 
impossible. In hilly districts, however favoured they might 
be by mineral wealth, good water-power, or other natural 
advantages, roads must be steep and difficult, and canals must 
cost a prohibitive sum. It was very hard to develop, for 
example, a coal-field, if it was remote from the sea and 
situated in a mountainous district. 

The case was the same with goods destined for foreign 
markets. Only places specially favoured by their nearness 
to a great harbour, or their easy accessibility by difficulties in 
canals, could readily move their products to the sea the way of 
and place them on ship-board. When once stowed »°^^^sn ra e. 
on the vessel, they were at the mercy of the wind and weather : 
since only sailing ships existed, their time of arrival at the 
foreign port was uncertain; often it might be protracted for 
months beyond the expected time. The time and the cost 



112 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of transport were things which even the most experienced 
merchant could not accurately calculate. 

The improvement in the means of transport began slightly 
earlier on sea than on land. After many experiments and half- 
The first successful trials, the steamboat emerged as a 

steamboats regular method of conveyance towards the end 
and railways. ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ French war. The earliest paddle- 
wheel steamers were employed for river-navigation alone. 
Their first use was seen in America about 1807, but five years 
later the Comet commenced running up and down the Clyde. 
Steam used "^^^ possibilities of the invention were soon 
for ocean grasped, and it was in a very few years applied 
voyages. ^^ ocean navigation, at first for short voyages, 

but ere very long for the longest possible distances. The first 
steamer crossed the Atlantic as early as 181 9, but for some 
time the problem of coal-carrying baffled the naval architect, 
and steamers on an oceanic voyage were expected to eke out 
their coal by using sails when the wind was favourable. It was 
not until twenty years later that the problem was completely 
solved, and the great steamship companies began to be formed : 
the Royal Mail Packet Company started in 1839, the Peninsular 
and Oriental and the Cunard Companies in 1840. By 1852 
most of the passenger traffic and the transport of all valuable 
and perishable goods had passed under the charge of steam, 
the old sailing vessels being relegated to the carrying of bulky 
and cheap commodities — such as coal or timber — whose rapid 
delivery made not much difference in their price. 

Steam navigation shortened in the most astounding way the 
time required for the transport of British goods to the remotest 
Resulting ends of the earth. It made time a calculable 
expansion of^ feature in commerce, instead of an element 
British trade, absolutely incalculable. Freights could be esti- 
mated with an accuracy and minuteness hitherto impossible ; 
orders could be carried and executed at half their former cost. 
Hence British commerce was able to invade many new markets, 



STEAM SUPERSEDES SAILS. 113 

and to compete with foreign manufactures in regions whose 
remoteness had once handicapped the development of trade. 

The poHtical effects of steam-navigation- are another branch 
of its influence that cannot be neglected. It made the govern- 
ment of colonies and dependencies infinitely more _ ,. . . 

, • ■ ^ r ^ PolltlCal 

easy, by shortenmg the time required tor the effects of 
exchange of question and answer between the steam-navi- 
local and the imperial government. The change 
had, no doubt, certain drawbacks ; it rendered the meddling 
interference of the central authority in matters of petty detail 
more possible, and tended to make weak officials refer every- 
thing home, instead of using their own initiative. These 
developments, however, have only become really dangerous 
since the electric telegraph, a generation later, placed White- 
hall in direct communication with every colonial capital. 
Meanwhile, steam had done nothing but good when it placed 
Calcutta at six weeks' instead of six months' distance from 
London, a feat accomplished after 1845, when the Peninsular 
and Oriental Company adopted the " Overland Route " by 
Alexandria and Suez, abandoning the long voyage round the 
Cape of Good Hope. 

It is curious to find how late steam was applied to our war 
navy. Before the screw superseded the paddle-wheel, and 
before armour had been invented, both the wheels Emolovment 
of the steamer and her driving-machinery were of steam in 
much exposed to hostile shot and shell. Hence war-vesse s. 
it was held that the type was too fragile for battle, and the old 
sailing ship-of-the line retained its place till the Crimean War. 
Steamers, when at last introduced, were only used as tugs and 
tenders, and were expected to keep to the rear when fighting 
was in progress. The first sea-going steam-ship in the navy 
was built as late as 1833. The first new line-of-battle ship 
driven by steam was only launched in 1852; this vessel, the 
Aga?nemno?i, was fitted with the screw, which, since 1840, had 
already begun to supersede the paddle-wheel. But it was not 



114 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

till the idea of covering warships with armour was conceived 
that the Admiralty finally ceased to employ the old sailing- 
vessels, of the type that Nelson had loved, as the main force of 
the navy. 

Astounding as were the changes wrought by the invention of 
steam-ships, the daily life of the world has been even more 

influenced by the appearance of the railway and 
railways^ ^^^ steam-locomotive. Two ideas had to be 

combined for the production of this new device : 
tramways, on which waggons were drawn by horses, had been 
known since 1801 ; steam-locomotives, which lumbered along 
the high-road like modern traction-engines, had first been seen 
in 1803. The notion that the locomotive could be made to drag 
trucks along the tramway-line was the initial idea of our whole 
railway system. The experiment was tried at first only on the 
smallest scale in quarries and coal-mines. It was successful, 
but attracted no great attention till 182 1, when George 
Stephenson, the father of railways, built the first line of any 
appreciable length, to connect the two north-country towns of 
Stockton and Darlington. This venture proved so successful 
that, four years later, Stephenson was employed to design a 
railroad to join Manchester with Liverpool. This undertaking 
was completed in five years, and in September, 1830, the first 
train was run. By a deplorable chance, it killed Huskisson, the 
great Tory champion of free trade. Engines had already im- 
proved so much, that trains of 1830 could travel at what was 
then considered the dangerous and break-neck rate of thirty 
miles an hour. 

The first promoters of railways had imagined that they 
would be mainly employed for carrying goods ; that passenger- 

T^ , . traffic would form an important branch of their 

Development ^ 

of passenger business does not seem to have occurred to them, 
traffic. ry^Q earliest first-class carriages were old stage- 

coaches fastened down to trucks, while third-class passengers 
were conveyed in open vans like those now employed to 



DEVELOPMENT OF RAILWAYS. 115 

carry cattle. It was only the enormous and unexpected influx 
of travellers that led to the construction of proper carriages 
for their convenience. From the moment that the Liverpool 
and Manchester railway proved a great success, lines began to 
be laid all over the country. The public, which had once been 
sceptical as to the whole matter, hastened to subscribe money 
for every railway scheme that could be broached, even for 
those which were obviously not likely to pay. The great 
period of expansion lay between 1830 and 1850, and by the 
later date all the present main lines, except the " Midland " 
and the " London, Chatham, and Dover," had come into exist- 
ence. Two great panics caused by over-speculation occurred 
in 1836 and 1845, t)ut the development of the national railway 
system was such a genuine and such a profitable thing that 
such troubles only gave it a momentary check. 

Railways can go, thanks to the skill of the modern engineer, 
into any corner of the earth where there is traffic sufficient to 
make them pay. Hence their creation opened out numerous 
corners of Great Britain which physical difficulties had hitherto 
kept in seclusion and poverty. Wherever coal and iron existed, 
they could now be utilized. Wherever manufactures are 
produced, they can easily be conveyed to the centres of home 
consumption or to the seaports which send them to foreign 
lands. Not the least important side of railway extension was 
that it made possible the easy transfer of labour from place to 
place. Down to 1830 the population of England had not 
been migratory ; men seldom moved far from the region where 
they had been born and bred. But with the sudden appearance 
of means of quick and cheap locomotion, it became easy for 
the working classes to go far afield. Even in remote country 
districts the hitherto stationary rural classes began to move, 
mainly in order to invade the towns, where labour was better 
paid, and life more lively and bustling, if not more attractive 
in other ways. 

The easy intercommunication between regions hitherto kept 



Ii6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

apart led to the combination of the workmen in various Unes 
Trades °^ manufacture into " Trades Unions," for the 

unions and purpose of securing by united action advantages 
stri es. which the individual or the men of a single district 

could not wring from their employers. , Such associations had 
once been prohibited by Act of Parliament, and it was only in 
1824 that they became legal. Their power from the first was 
very great, but has not always been wisely used. Excellent 
for securing the fair rise in wages during times of prosperity, 
they have often tried to prevent the equally rational fall in 
wages during periods of stagnation and adversity. Strikes set 
on foot for such objects may ruin the employer, but are also 
bound to starve the employed, since trade cannot be carried on 
at a loss. It is hopeless to endeavour to force the manufacturer 
to pay more than the state of the market enables him to give. 
If the strike under such circumstances is persisted in, the branch 
of industry in which it occurs must fail, and it is almost certain 
that the profits formerly made in it will be transferred to the 
foreigner. In their earlier days Trades Unions had another 
very legitimate sphere of operations, in dealing with the abuses 
and oppression which prevailed in many factories. The law 
had not yet taken notice of many evil features of the new 
manufacturing system which had sprung up during the great 
French war. Overcrowding, over-long hours of work, insanitary 
conditions of life, careless supervision in dangerous employ- 
ments, were all rife. Against such criminal negligence on the 
part of employers the Unions could bring pressure to bear, and 
did so with the best results. 

The larger amount, however, of the legislation for the reform 
of factory life was due rather to the improved spirit of public 

opinion than to the direct pressure of the Trades 
Acte ^^ °^^ Unions. The same humanitarian feeling which led 

to the abolition of negro slavery, or to the reform 
of the criminal laws, led men to take a legitimate interest in 
the welfare of the workers in great towns. Believing that every 



THE PENNY POST. 117 

Englishman was responsible for any unnecessary misery inflicted 
on his poorer countrymen, philanthropists like Lord Shaftesbury 
led the agitation for the restriction of child-labour, the inspection 
of mines and factories, and the abolition of such abuses as the 
payment of wages in kind instead of money. Allusion has been 
made in an earlier chapter to these reforms, most of which were 
carried out between the years 1830 and 1850. 

Along with them may be named several other typical develop- 
ments of the nineteenth century, which show the general rise 
in the conception of social life. Capital punish- other ohases 
ment, which had been restricted to a comparatively of social im- 
few offences since Peel began his reforms, was P^'ovement. 
practically abolished for all crimes save murder and treason in 
1 84 1. The last execution for forgery had taken place twelve 
years before, in 1829. The barbarous mutilation of the bodies 
of traitors was last seen at the execution of Thistlewood and 
his gang in 1820. The detestable practice of duelling barely 
survived into the forties. Drunkenness ceased to be tolerated 
in polite society, and a series of Acts starting in the " thirties " 
have slowly succeeded in making it less the typical national 
vice of Great Britain than it was in the early years of the 
century. Brutal amusements like prize-fighting have shown a 
gratifying tendency towards disappearance. In every case 
public opinion has outrun legislation, and the good effected 
has been as much the result of social pressure on the individual 
as of the punishments inflicted by the law. 

A few words must be spared to give some account of two 
inventions of no mean importance, which started early in the 
reign of Victoria, and have done much to modify 
the daily life of England. The first was the ^gt.^^""^ 
introduction of the penny post in 1840, after a 
long agitation led by Rowland Hill, who spent several years 
in convincing obstinate post-office officials that a uniform low 
rate for all letters delivered within the kingdom would cause 
gain, and not loss, to the exchequer. Down to 1840 letters were 



ii8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

charged with sums varying from 4^. to is. 8d. In that year 
the penny rate was accepted, and by 1842 the number of letters 
sent through the post had tripled itself. A few years later the 
increase had grown so great that a handsome and ever-growing 
profit was realized. The first penny letters were obliged to be 
despatched in government envelopes covered with an elaborate 
pictorial design, but after a few months the much more con- 
venient adhesive postage stamp was invented, and superseded 
completely the older plan (184 1). The electric telegraph started 

as a practical scheme about three years later than the 
T\Q^tanh^^ penny post. It was originally worked by private 

companies, not by the government post-office. In 
1843 the first line was built, covering the twenty miles between 
Paddington and Slough. Seven years later the network of poles 
and wires covered the whole kingdom ; and in 185 1 the first 
submarine cable was laid from Dover to Calais. It is almost 
impossible for us to conceive the change made in everyday 
life by the introduction of these cheap and quick methods of 
communication. The only thing that can be said against them 
is that they have killed the ancient and elegant art of descriptive 
letter-writing as practised by our grandfathers. 

Any account of the first half of the nineteenth century which 
omitted to notice its extraordinary fertility in literature of the 

highest class would be very incomplete. No 
Literature at pgj.iQ(^ jj^ English history shows such a cluster of 
of the nine- great names; none save the Elizabethan age 
teentn cen- deserves to be named along with it. The period 

before the great French war had been a singularly 
dull one ; only a few writers like Burns, Sheridan, Cowper, and 
Burke had given promise of the great outburst that was at 
hand. But the generation which grew to manhood in the 
stress of the struggle, or was born while it was still in progress, 
seems to have gathered inspiration from the general stir and 
tumult, intellectual and political, of the times. Even those 
whose range of topics lay among subjects which did not at 



POETS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY. 119 

once reflect the spirit of the age, were none the less deeply- 
affected by it. In the earliest poems of Wordsworth and 
Southey, written before the eighteenth century was quite run 
out, we trace first a profession of faith in the principles of the 
French Revolution, and a little later a recantation of the error, 
as they fall into line with the prevailing national sentiment 
and adopt a strongly British tone. 

Sir Walter Scott, the first of the greater poets to break into 
verse in the new century, was inspired not only by a romantic 
affection for the picturesque side of mediaeval 
history, but by an ardent patriotism which led 
him to sing of the events of the great war as they passed by 
him. It must be confessed that his inspiration was not usually 
at its best when he dealt with such themes in the " Vision of 
Don Roderic " or " Waterloo." Lord Byron and Shelley, men 
of the younger generation, showed the influence of the times in 
a different way. The former was so deeply bitten 
by discontent for what he called the " Age of 
Bronze," that he abused Wellington, and called Waterloo 
" bloody and most bootless." But his protest against the 
common national feeling of his day in this respect is only a part 
of his general attitude of somewhat morbid and affected opposi- 
tion to the whole state of English society and politics. Posing 
as a misunderstood genius and a censor of his times, Byron was 
almost bound to fall foul of the patriotism that had enabled us 
to fight through the great war. It is some consolation to see 
him in his last years doing something practical for liberty in 
the Greek war, instead of merely carping at the honest 
enthusiasms of his contemporaries. Shelley, on the other 

hand, was not merely a critic of his times, but ^, ,. 

r 1- • , ^ , , Shelley, 

an active apostle of political and moral anarchy. 

It is a thousand pities that the lot of such a poet should have 

been cast in the days of the French Revolution. The most 

futile and extravagant doctrines of the French school had a 

fatal attraction for his high-strung and hysterical mind, and he 



I20 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

lavished a wealth of splendid imagery on adorning the cheapest 
revolutionary ideas. Piercing below his glorious diction, we 
find the old protest against all laws, human and divine, which 
formed the stock-in-trade of the followers of Rousseau. Shelley 
was made for something better than denouncing " the crimes 
and tyrannies of priests and kings." But from the day when 
he was expelled from Oxford for sending his tract on " The 
Logical Necessity of Atheism " to the master of his college, 
he had an incorrigible tendency to take up every perverse idea 
that was in the air. It is thus that it came to pass that a 
poet who possessed the greatest mastery over language, the 
profoundest sympathy with nature, the widest range of thought, 
and the most abundant flow of beautiful images and ideas, 
exercised no influence whatever over his own generation. 

It is kindest to Byron and Shelley to remember that the 
bulk of their writings were produced in the days when Lord 
Liverpool was prime minister. Toryism presented in such a 
dull shape had in it enough to irritate minds less susceptible 
than those of poets. 

It is astounding to note how the flow of literature of the first 
class which begins during the great French war continues during 
the early half of the nineteenth century. Beside 
writ^*rs ^^^ great names which we have mentioned, 

Keats and Moore in poetry, Charles Lamb and 
de Quincey among essayists and descriptive writers. Sir Walter 
Scott and Jane Austen among novelists, all start within a few 
years of each other. The period of 18x0-30 is set thick with 
literary masterpieces, and long before the survivors of the 
generation which produced them had passed away, the men of 
the younger age, whom we may call the early-Victorian writers, 
had begun to work. Tennyson's first book of poems was 
produced twenty years before the death of Wordsworth; 
Dickens's earliest sketches were published only five years after 
Scott's latest novel. Lord Macaulay and Carlyle overlap 
Lamb and de Quincey. Thackeray, Robert Browning, Charles 



THE CHURCH AND THE "EVANGELICALS." 121 

Kingsley, and John Ruskin all produced some of their best work 

before 1852.* Most of these authors of the Early-Victorian 

time were destined to go on writing into' the second half of the 

century, but all had arrived at maturity in the early years of 

Victoria's reign, and belong in their character and ideas to the 

earlier and not the later period of it. We shall note further on 

the lamentable dwindling of the harvest of first-rate literature 

in the last decades of the age. 

Any account of social change in England in the first half of 

the nineteenth century must take notice of the extraordinary 

changes which passed over its religious life during 

the period. At its beginning, the only vital force movements 

in the land was the Evangelical Movement, which — Evangeli- 

calism 
had affected the Established Church almost as 

much as the dissenting bodies. The revival of active energy, 

which had commenced with Wesley in the middle of the last 

century, had reached its height by 1800. It had induced 

multitudes to leave the national Church in order to join the 

new Methodist sects; but there had remained behind, within 

the establishment, hundreds of clergy who carried on the 

Wesleyan tradition, and at the commencement of the century 

they were the only energetic party. But the Evangelicals were 

never the majority of the clerical body ; there still survived a 

considerable leaven of the sj)i ritual apathy of earlier Georgian 

times. The type of vicar who regaled his congregation with 

dry moral essays by way of sermons, and who regarded all 

♦ It may be worth while to give the dates of these authors, to show the 
way in which they overlap. Scott died in 1832, Lamb in 1834, Southey in 
1843, Wordsworth i^i 1850, de Quincey in 1859. Macaulay (1800- 1859) 
began to write in 1824. Di kens (1812-70) pub ished his " Sketches by 
Boz" in 1836. Tennyson (1809-92) issued his " Poems, chiefly Lyrical," 
in 1830. Thackeray (1811-63) produced his first book in 1840, and his 
great " Vanity Fair " in 1846-48. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was already 
writing essays in 1822, and issued "Sartor Resartus" in 1831. Charles 
Kingsley (1819-75) started his work with "The Saints' Tragedy" in 1847. 
Browning (1812-89) was producing verse as early as 1833. Ruskin's 
" Modern Painters " began in 1843, ^^^ '^'^^ finished in 1846. 



122 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

enthusiasm with distrust, was still very common. There is no 
doubt that the general moral level of the clergy had gone up 
in the reign of George III. Scandals were no longer frequent, 
and gross neglect of duty was rare. But outside the ranks of 
the Evangelicals fervour and activity were wanting. No 
adequate effort had been made to cope with the difficulties 
arising from the growth of the new manufacturing towns, or the 
expansion of London. For the first time in English history, a 
whole generation had grown up in such centres of population 
which was quite out of touch of religious instruction, and was 
tending towards practical heathenism. 

For dealing with such a problem, organization and cor- 
porate action were as necessary as zeal and fervour, and want 
Defects of ^^ organization was unfortunately the weak point 
the Evan- of the Evangelical party. In energetic missionary 
gelical party, ^^qj-j^ qj^ ^.^^g individual hearer they were admir- 
able and untiring, but just becau^ their message of conversion 
was to the individual, they failed to build up any system of 
Church work and Church life. They had, moreover, never 
succeeded in getting command of the higher posts in the Church, 
and were much hampered by the dislike for movement of the 
bishops, most of whom were still political nominees or mere 
classical scholars, as in the earlier Georgian age. The Evan- 
gelical party were always to the front in schemes for philan- 
thropic and benevolent ends. They had energetically supported 
the abolition of the Slave Trade and the passing of the Factory 
Acts ; they had been vigorously pressing missionary enterprise 
in foreign lands, and were mainly responsible for the general 
rise in the moral tone of society during the earlier decades of 
the nineteenth century. But there was room in the Church for 
other developments, which they had been unable or unwilling 
to supply. 

The first of these was that of the " Broad Church " move- 
ment, which was running strongly all through the middle of 
the century. Its exponents disliked the narrow scheme of 



THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. 1 23 

salvation and the emotional type of piety which were cha- 
racteristic of the Evangelical school, and wished to 
make the Church comprehensive, tolerant, mode- p{j^ *\^f° 
rate, and learned. The earlier men of the Broad movement- 
Church school laid more stress on the study of phi- Whateley— 

. . J r- Kmgsley. 

losophy and logic as the basis of natural religion. 

The greatest name among them is that of Archbishop Whateley 
(1787-1863). The later leaders devoted more time to the 
historical development of dogma, the textual study of the 
scriptures — sometimes carried out in a rather destructive spirit, 
— and the reconciling of science and religion. They never 
had much influence with the masses, to whom their message 
was not directed, but largely affected the thought of the 
educated classes. Only a few of their leaders, indeed, tried to 
' popularize Broad Church views ; the only man of real prosely- 
tizing spirit among them was the poet and novelist Charles 
Kingsley. The enthusiasm which he displayed for all social 
progress and moral reform was not characteristic of the whole 
school, who were distinctly scholars rather than missionaries. 

A revolt against Evangelical doctrines on very different lines 
was to win far greater influence than the Broad Church school 
has ever attained. This was the so-called " Oxford 
Movement," which started in the fourth decade Movement " 
(1833-34) of the century among a knot of young 
university men, of whom several of the most prominent were 
fellows of Oriel College. The inspiring thought of the new 
High Church school — they soon got the name of Tractarians, 
from a series of tracts in which their views were set forth-^was 
a belief in the historic continuity of the Church. They refused 
to accept the common Protestant doctrine that the Established 
Church started with Henry VHI. and the Reformation, and 
wished to assert its entire identity with the church of Augustine 
and Anselm. As a logical consequence, they were ready to 
accept all early and even mediaeval doctrine which was not 
specially disavowed by the Anglican formularies. The Church 



124 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of England, as a living branch of the Catholic Church, they 
thought, could not refuse to accept anything that had primitive 
usage on its side. Special stress was laid by them on two 
doctrines, equally repugnant to their Low Church and to their 
Broad Church contemporaries — the Real Presence in the 
Sacrament and the Sacrificial Priesthood of the Clergy. Such 
views had been held in the England of the seventeenth century, 
but they had been almost forgotten in the eighteenth, and 
sounded like a revival of popery to most men. 

Enthusiastic study of the Early Fathers and of other sources 
of dogma formed part of the Tractarians' scheme of life. Their 
The leaders teaching found wide acceptance among the clergy, 
of the Trac- as was natural when the new doctrine so greatly 
anans. magnified the priestly office. But the fervent piety 

and earnest lives of the early leaders of the movement, such as 
John Keble, John Henry Newman, and Hurrell Froude, would 
have attracted followers, even if there had been much less to 
be said in favour of their views. All through the forties there 
was bitter strife between the Tractarians and their opponents, 
who openly accused them of paving the way for the submission 
of the English Church to Rome. This notion was certainly 
confirmed by such writings as Newman's celebrated pamphlet, 
in which he proved, by a series of elaborate but unconvincing 
arguments, that the " Thirty-nine Articles " were so loosely 
worded that a man might hold all the more prominent Roman 
doctrines and yet stay within the Anglican establishment. The 
author did not convince himself, as a few years later he went 
over to Rome, followed by a number of his more prominent 
disciples, and died a cardinal in 1890. 

But the great bulk of the High Churchmen, headed by 
Keble, the model of parish priests, and Pusey, the most learned 
The His-h ^^ their theologians, did not break away from 
Church the Church of their birth, but stayed within it. 

par y. They were determined to win recognition for their 

views within the Anglican communion, and fully succeeded. 



DISRUPTION OF THE SCOTTISH KIRK. 125 

Ere the movement was thirty years old it had transformed 
the face of rehgious England. The High Churchmen had 
from the first shown a capacity for combined action and 
orderly co-operation which the Evangelical party had never 
displayed. It came, no doubt, from the fact that their doctrines 
laid great stress on the corporate unity of the Church, and the 
duty of working in unison and setting aside personal prejudices, 
while the Evangelicals had relied on individual effort, and had 
never given their party any effective organization. Though 
not more zealous in parochial or missionary work than their 
elder rivals, the Tractarians proved far more successful. They 
did admirable work in the way of stirring up neglected districts, 
building new churches, putting an end to careless and slovenly 
forms of worship, and raising the general standard of activity 
expected from the clergy. It is by their splendid practical 
work in this direction that they have raised themselves to so 
high a place in the Anglican communion, for public opinion 
seldom fails in the end to recognize and reward such merit. 
Zeal, of course, has not always been tempered with discretion ; 
but eccentricities on the part of a minority cannot blind us to 
the admirable effect of the High Church movement as a whole : 
it has certainly left the National Church in a condition of 
greater health and activity than it has enjoyed at any time 
since the reign of Queen Anne. 

While the Tractarian movement had been fighting its first 
battles in England, the Established Church in Scotland had 
been rent asunder by a struggle quite as fierce, 
though turning on very different points (1834-43). S^j^rj" ^\ 
The question at issue north of Tweed was the of Scotland 
relation between the State and the Church, taking ^- 1?^ tree 
shape in a dispute as to the right of presentation 
to benefices. The system by which ministers were nominated 
by a patron instead of chosen by the congregation seemed so 
objectionable to a large section of the Scottish clergy, headed 
by Dr. Chalmers, that when Parliament refused to give the 



126 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

parish a veto on the patron's choice, they seceded from the 
Estabhshed Church, and formed a new denomination called 
the Free Kirk (May i8, 1843). Thus they CbtabHshed a com- 
munion free from all State control, but only at the terrible 
cost of splitting Scotland into two spiritual camps, and setting 
up rival kirks and manses in every town and village, with a 
consequent crop of bitter quarrels that endured for more than 
a. generation. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FROM THE CRIMEAN WAR TO THE DEATH OF LORD PALMERSTON. 

1853-1865. 

When Lord Derby's ministry was forced to resign, in December 
1852, English politics presented a spectacle which has never 
been exactly paralleled before or since. The 
Liberals and Conservatives were each divided Coalition of 
into two opposing sections, kept apart by the Peelkes— 
most effective barrier — the personal animosities Lord Aber- 
of their sectional chiefs. After the tricks they ^^^^"'^ minis- 
had played on each other, Russell and Palmerston 
could not easily combine, while the Peelite and the Protectionist 
Conservatives still looked on each other as traitors. The 
Peelites thought of Disraeli and his friends as the betrayers 
of their great dead leader ; the Protectionists retorted that the 
Peelites had betrayed the old principles of their party when 
they followed Sir Robert in his conversion to Free Trade. But 
every one felt that the business of the country must somehow 
be carried on, and after a prolonged deadlock a coalition was 
patched up. 

Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston agreed to serve 
together in the same ministry, but neither was to be premier. 
They took the Peelites into partnership, and gave the position 
of prime minister to Lord Aberdeen, who had been Peel's 
lieutenant at the Foreign Office. He was a worthy, well- 
intentioned man, and a scholar of merit, but certainly more 



128 ENGLAND IN THE NINEIEENTH CENTURY. 

wanting in force and resolution than any minister who had 
taken the helm of State since the resignation of Addington in 
1804. In foreign politics he was a great believer in non-inter- 
vention and masterly inactivity, but he was quite incapable of 
resisting his more energetic colleagues when they pressed and 
worried him forward into measures which he did not approve. 
Several other Peelites were received into the new ministry, the 
most notable of whom was William Ewart Gladstone, who had 
already acquired a considerable reputation as a financier, and 
was now made Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had never 
been any very essential divergence between the views of the 
Peelites and those of the more cautious Whigs, so that the two 
parties merged easily together, and in a few years the former 
were absorbed into the ranks of their allies : some of them, 
notoriously the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, became ere 
long advanced rather than moderate members of the Liberal 
party. 

The new ministry, combining as it did all political sections 
except the Derby-Disraeli Conservatives, seemed very powerful 
n d tone's ^^^^ likely to last for many years. It made a most 
financial triumphant entry into office, starting with a con- 

measures, siderable surplus and a popular budget introduced 
by Gladstone, who lowered or abolished a great number of 
import duties, in imitation of Peel's great measures of 1844. 
But he did not carry out his old leader's pledge of abolishing 
the income tax when good times had come round, and left it 
fixed as a millstone around the neck of the middle classes. 

Before Lord Aberdeen had been many months in power, 
signs of trouble began to make themselves visible in the sphere 
of foreign affairs. The difficulty arose in Turkey, 
Question^ ^^" where the " Eastern Question " had never ceased 
to be a source of bickering between the great 
powers since the old troubles of the Greek insurrection in the 
twenties. The Ottoman empire had been in so many tribula- 
tions since those days, that there was a fixed idea in many 



THE EASTERN QUESTION. 129 

minds that it was at the end of its resources, and that in a 
few years the sultans must vanish altogether, or at least pass 
beyond the Bosphorus and abandon Constantinople and Europe. 
The consummation was devoutly to be wished, but no two 
powers were agreed on the manner in which it was to come 
to pass. Meanwhile their ambassadors continued to intrigue 
against each other with the Porte, as had been the custom for 
the last century and more. 

The Czar Nicholas I. had his own plan for the dismember- 
ment of the Sultan's realm, and for some time had been 
cautiously approaching the ministers of other p. . e 

countries, to see how they would take it. In the Czar of 
January, 1853, he used more definite language '^"s^^^- 
to the English ambassador at St. Petersburg. "We have on 
our hands," he said, " a sick man — a very sick man : it will be 
a great misfortune if one of these days he should slip away 
from us, before the necessary arrangements have been made." 
The " necessary arrangements," as explained by the Czar in a 
later interview, were that the sick man's neighbours should 
have settled beforehand exactly what share of his inheritance 
each of them should take. Nicholas proposed that Servia, 
Roumania, and Bulgaria should pass under his own suzerainty 
as dependent principalities, while England might take Egypt 
and the island of Crete. The other powers, no doubt, would 
be propitiated with similar slices of Turkey. 

The English Government received these proposals, when 
they were transmitted to London, in a very frigid way ; they 
were not prepared to stand in to the bargain, and « ., •. , r 
wished to stave off the day of dismemberment. England 
Nicholas, nevertheless, went on with his scheme, ^ France, 
and while secretly pressing it came into collision with another 
despot, the new Emperor of the French. Napoleon III. was 
at this time anxious to make firm his somewhat uncertain seat 
at Paris by pursuing a spirited foreign policy, and thought that 
it would not suit his plans to let Russia assume the leadership 



I30 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

in the East. France had for a long time claimed and exercised 

a certain patronage over the Christians of the Levant, and 

Napoleon did not intend that this protectorate should pass to 

the Czar. 

The first signs of open opposition between the two emperors 

took the curious shape of a dispute as to whether Greek or 

Roman Catholic monks should be entrusted with 

the star— the custody of the great shrines of Palestine. It 

Menchikoffs was humorously said at the time that the war had 
embassy. . . . •. , , ,, . , „ 

Its origm m a quarrel about a key and a star — 

the former was that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the latter 

a large ornament in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. 

But the actual cause of rupture was the embassy of Prince 

Menchikoff to Constantinople ; he came with orders to demand 

a formal treaty granting to Russia the protectorate over all 

the Christians of the East. This measure roused the anger of 

Lord Stratford de Redclifife, the English ambassador to the 

Porte, who was a bitter opponent of Russia. He and his 

French colleague encouraged the Sultan to refuse Menchikofif's 

request, whereupon Czar Nicholas determined to bring pressure 

on Abdul-Medjid by occupying Roumania. 

When his troops crossed the Pruth into Turkish territory 

(July, 1853), England found herself quite unexpectedly on the 

verge of war. There followed a long struggle in 

The Rus- the English cabinet between Lord Aberdeen and 

si3,ns cross 

the Pruth— ^^^ energetic foreign minister, Palmerston. The 

England and former, while protesting his distaste for war and 

the Turks. ^^^ disbelief in its approach, was gradually edged 

on into making a close alliance with the French 

emperor, and sending a strong detachment of warships through 

the Dardanelles up to Constantinople (October 22). A few 

weeks later the Russian Black Sea squadron destroyed the 

Turkish fleet at Sinope, whereupon English and French ships 

passed the Bosphorus, and compelled the Russians to take 

refuge in the harbour of Sebastopol (January, 1854). From 



ORIGIN OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 131 

this action to open war was but a short step, but it was three 
months before that step was taken. Driven forward by Palmer- 
ston, Lord Aberdeen consented to join the French emperor 
in issuing an ultimatum to the Czar, threatening hostihties 
unless he evacuated the Turkish provinces which he had seized. 
On his refusal, war was declared (March 27, 1854). 

To have to fight for the maintenance of the corrupt despo- 
tism of the Sultan, in company with such a doubtful ally as 
Napoleon III., was an unhappy necessity. But it p , 
had to be done, since the Czar had determined to feeling in 
carry out the dismemberment of Turkey without ^"S^^""* 
the consent of the other powers. So much was his arrogant 
action resented in England that the war was very popular, and 
hopeful persons even thought that our alliance with the Sultan 
might regenerate Turkey, a delusion which was destined to 
endure for a whole generation. 

England was at the moment very far from being prepared 
for active hostilities. Our army had seen no service in Europe 
since Waterloo, and its organization was wholly ^xr *. r 
out of gear. The individual regiments were in military 
good fighting trim, but they were quite un- Preparations, 
accustomed to act together in large bodies, or to face the hard- 
ships of campaigning in a distant and thinly peopled country. 
The supply services were in a hopeless state of inefficiency ; 
there was practically no one who understood how to feed and 
clothe an army in the field. But a considerable force, some 
28,000 men in all, was hastily collected and sent to the Levant, 
where they joined a French army of about the same size. The 
general placed in command was Lord Raglan, a 

veteran of the Peninsular AVar. He had been a n° 1 

Raglan. 

distinguished officer in his day, but was now sixty- 
six years of age and almost past service. He possessed tact 
and good judgment, but not the energy and force needed for a 
commander who had to direct a combined army and to deal 
with the divergent views of his French colleagues. 



132 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The allied army was directed to land in the Crimea, for a 

double purpose : a blow delivered in this direction would 

almost certainly call back the Russian invaders of 
Invasion of ^ . ^ _ ^ , . ., j ^ ^i 

the Crimea Roumania to defend their own soil, and at the 

Battle of same time it was desired that Sebastopol, the 

refuge and arsenal of the Czar's Black Sea fleet, 

should be destroyed. There was also considerable advantage 

in attacking the enemy in a remote corner of his dominion, 

easily accessible by sea, as he would have great difficulty in 

forwarding thither reinforcements across the South Russian 

steppes, where roads and railways were then equally wanting. 

The Anglo-French army, rather over 50,000 strong, landed in 

the Crimean peninsula, unopposed, on September 17, 1854; 

three days later they met the Russians on the heights along 

the river Alma. Prince Menchikoff, who was in command, 

showed himself not more capable as a general than he had 

been as ambassador to the Porte in the preceding year. He 

failed to take full advantage of his strong ground; but his 

adversaries blundered almost as much, for half the French 

army was wasted in a useless turning movement, and did not 

fire a shot. The redoubts and batteries, however, which 

formed the key of the Rjassian position were stormed by the 

English, and the prince had to retire with his forces much 

shattered by the terrible musketry fire of the victors. The 

English had fought with splendid audacity, but had been 

miserably handled by their generals, who made themselves 

responsible for a wholly unnecessary carnage among their men 

by not properly combining their attacks. Lord Raglan himself 

blundered into the centre of the Russian lines, where he was 

unable to communicate with his subordinates, and would have 

been taken prisoner if the enemy had not been culpably blind 

to their advantage (September 20, 1854). 

After the victory of the Alma the allies might have entered 

Sebastopol without much trouble, for the demoralized Russian 

army withdrew into the interior. But the French commander, 



SEBASTOPOL BESIEGED. 



133 



St. Arnaud, refused to press their retreat, and when the 
alhes quietly sat down before Sebastopol and . 

made preparations for a formal siege, Menchikoff Sebastopol. 
threw his battalions once more into the fortress, 
and prepared to defend it to the last. Thus began the famous 
sieee which was to last for no less than eleven months (October, 
1854— September, 1855), and to cost over a hundred thousand 
lives. The first bombardment of .the place was undertaken 



hfd^a^'^i^ 




SEBASTOPOL 
and its Environs, 

1854-1855. 



with insufficient resources, and ended in complete failure. Soon 
after reinforcements began to reach the Russians, mainly 
from the army which was now retiring from the Danube. 
With the aid of these succours Menchikoff made two 
vigorous attempts to raise the siege, each of which led to 
a battle. 

On October 25 his field army descended on Balaclava, the 
port at which the English were landing their supplies, and 



134 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

brought to action the very insufficient force — almost entirely 
cavalry — which had been left to defend it. The 

B cL 1 3,C 1 3. VS."""* 

The charge niain advance was stopped by the heroic charge 
of the Light of Scarlett's brigade of heavy dragoons, who 

^^^^ * broke through and hurled back thrice their 
number of Russian horse. But this gallant and successful feat 
of arms was followed by the disastrous " Charge of the Light 
Brigade." A vague and ill-worded order sent by Lord Raglan 
was perversely misinterpreted by Lord Lucan, who commanded 
the English cavalry, and he proceeded to hurl the 670 sabres 
of the Light Brigade at the batteries which formed the centre 
of the Russian line. This mad project was executed ; though 
encircled on three sides by a concentric fire from the whole 
hostile army, this handful of horsemen rode forward for a mile 
and a half, captured the guns, and broke up the Russian centre. 
But no attempt had been made to support them with infantry, 
and when their impetus was spent, these unfortunate heroes had 
to cut their way back through the enemy and return foiled to 
the English lines. They had lost 113 killed and 154 wounded 
out of 670 men : the only wonder is that a single trooper sur- 
vived to tell this tale of dire mismanagement. 

Balaclava was nothing more than a drawn battle, for the 
Russians, though they had failed to capture the port, were able 
T 1, _ to maintain their advanced position opposite the 

"The sol- English base. Nine days afterwards Menchikoff 
diers' battle, j^-j^^^g another and a more desperate attempt to 
break through the besiegers' lines. At early dawn on November 
4, two heavy columns were launched against the north-eastern 
corner of the allied position on the heights of Inkerman. Forty 
thousand men in all took part in the attack, but the column 
which debouched from the town of Sebastopol came on the 
ground long before that which marched from the open country. 
Favoured by a thick fog, the approach of the enemy was not 

seen till they were close upon the English camp. The first 
cohimn was met by the nearest troops, and checked after 



BATTLE OF INKERMAN. 135 

desperate fighting among ravines and hillsides, where every 
regiment had to wage its own battle in the blinding mist. 
Presently the rest of the Russian host groped its way to the 
front, and at the same time more English troops came hurrying 
in from other parts of the siege lines. The second clash was 
even more terrible than the first, but after many hours of hand- 
to-hand fighting the assailants were again brought to a check, 
and French reinforcements began to come upon the field. At 
last the Russians recoiled, thoroughly beaten, and quite un- 
conscious that their 40,000 men had been repulsed by 9000 
English, aided in the end of the fight by 7000 French. The 
victory was eminently glorious to the rank and file of the 
victors, for in this " soldiers' battle " no direction by the com- 
mander-in-chief had been given, and, indeed, the fog and 
confusion rendered it almost impossible for him to exercise 
much control over the fight. 

After Inkerman the siege of Sebastopol took a strange shape. 
The allies were actually outnumbered by the garrison for the 
winter months, and were barely able to maintain 
their lines round the south side of the city. The ^^ ^^^ troops 
northern front was always open for the arrival of 
reinforcements from the interior of Russia. The winter was 
one of exceptional rigour, and both sides suffered the most 
terrible privations. In the long marches through the snow, the 
Russian armies of succour lost nearly half their numbers ere 
they could get to the front. The French and English, on the 
other hand, encamped on the bleak and barren plateau of 
the Chersonese, without any shelter save their tents, and with 
barely sufficient food to keep body and soul together, were 
slowly perishing from cold, dysentery, and the perpetual labour 
in the trenches. The English supply services broke down 
altogether, and could not even forward food to the front up 
the six miles of road which separated the port of Balaclava 
from the siege lines. The men starved, even when provisions 
by the shipload were being thrown ashore at the base. During 



136 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

January Lord Raglan had to report that of the 24,000 men 
under him only 11,000 were fit for service, while 13,000 were 
in hospital. The mortality among the sick rose to a frightful 
percentage, for there was not sufficient shelter for them, nor 
were the simplest medical comforts available. Indeed, the 
hospitals both in the Crimea and at Constantinople were in a 
disgraceful state, till volunteer aid was forthcoming from England, 
and Florence Nightingale and her nurses brought some order 
into the chaos. 

When the war-correspondents at the front and the private 
letters of officers ] -tt the public into the secret that the army 
was rapidly dying off, for want of ordinary care 
in England— ^^^ vigilance on the part of the home authorities, 
Lord Aber- ^ wild outburst of wrath followed. The nation 
' was rightly dissatisfied at the way in which the 
war was being conducted. Sebastopol had not fallen for want 
of a little push and energy in the days following the victory on 
the Alma. A fleet sent to the Baltic had failed to do anything 
worthy of notice. Money was being spent with both hands, 
yet the army was starving. Some of the misfortunes of the 
winter of 1854-55 were, no doubt, due to the fact that the 
soldiers were not accustomed to the hard life of the field, and 
that the administration had no experience of war. But much 
more was due to red tape, foolish formalism, and culpable 
slackness at home. The scapegoats chosen by popular 
clamour were the premier, Lord Aberdeen, and his war 
minister, the Duke of Newcastle. They were forced to resign 
their offices, though the greater part of the blame ought to 
have been distributed among ignorant and obstinate sub- 
ordinates in the home civil service, whom the ministers had 
not known how to stir up into activity. Lord Palmerston, 
whose name was regarded as synonymous with energy and 
readiness to fight, replaced as prime minister the unfortunate 
disciple of Sir Robert Peel. 

In the spring of 1855 the war went oh for some time without 



SEBASTOPOL STORMED. I37 

marked success on either side. The Czar Nicholas was killed 

off by the hard winter, but his young son _ 

^ . . J ^ Progress of 

Alexander continued his policy. Fresh troops the siege- 
continued to pour into Sebastopol, and the great Death of the 
engineer Todleben so strengthened the place by Victor Ema- 
buildino^ line after line of earthworks in front of "^^^ j?,^."^ 

• • 1 r r , 1 r ^^^ AlIlCS. 

its original front of ramparts, that the fortress 
continued to increase instead of to fall off in defensive power 
as the siege went on. The allies, however, did not relax their 
efforts : the French emperor, whose popularity was bound up 
with success in the war, forwarded large reinforcements to the 
Crimea. The English Government, whose task was harder 
because of the very small numbers of our standing army, con- 
trived to raise our expeditionary force to 40,000. In May 
the Sardinian king, Victor Emanuel, joined England and 
France for political reasons— he was anxious to pose as a 
power of European importance, ar.d to win the gratitude of 
France. A fine division of his troops joined the besieging 
army. But matters did not come to a head at Sebastopol till 
the middle of the summer. In June a new and enterprising 
French commander. Marshal Peiissier, was appointed. By his 
desire, a vigorous attempt to storm the place was made (June 
17-18); some outworks were captured, but the main assault 
failed. It was not till September that a bombardment of un- 
paralleled vehemence so shook the Russian works that a 
second assault could be made. Meanwhile Lord Raglan died, 
worn out by the fatigue and responsibility of a campaign which 
was too hard for a man of his age (June 20, 1855). 

On September 8 the final storm took place. The French, 
massing 30,000 men on a single point, carried the Malakofif, 
a fort which commanded the whole line of de- 
fence : its capture rendered further resistance on Sebastoool 
the part of the Russians hopeless. But the English 
failed lamentably at the Redan, which had fallen to their share 
in the assault. The utterly insufficient force sent against 



138 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

it entered the work, but was beaten out again with much blood- 
shed, because no reinforcements were pushed up to its aid. 
However, the fall of the Malakofif had settled the fate of 
Sebastopol. That night the Russians set the place on fire 
and evacuated it. Their army, however, still lay in great 
strength on the north side of the harbour, and to thrust 
it from the Crimea another great battle would have been 
necessary. 

The effort was never made. The French emperor had now 

obtained the success and military glory which he had coveted, 

and was anxious not to risk them by any more 

I "1-1 f\ I 't"0*lT"* 

of Paris ^ fightmg. To the great discontent of the English 
nation, which was but just warming to the work, 
he insisted on opening negotiations with the enemy. The 
Czar was only too glad to come to terms : his troops had 
suffered frightful losses, his finances were in disorder, and the 
coasting traffic of the empire, both in the Baltic and the Black 
Sea, had been annihilated by the raiding expeditions of English 
squadrons. There followed the unsatisfactory Peace of Paris 
(March, 1856), by which Russia surrendered a small strip of 
land at the Danube mouth, and undertook to maintain no war- 
fleet in the Black Sea. This last promise was certain to be 
maintained only so long as the alliance of France and England 
kept the Czar in check. The Sultan, on the other hand, issued 
many empty proclamations as to his intention to ameliorate 
the lot of his Christian subjects — professions which the 
Western powers were at that time simple enough to accept 
as a genuine sign of his intention to reform the Ottoman 
empire. 

Thus ended England's last European war in the nineteenth 
century. Much can be said against its policy : the defence of 
Policv of the Turkish despotism, as subsequent events have 
Crimean conclusively proved, was not a worthy end in 

^^^' itself. We were throughout the struggle utilized 

and exploited by our selfish French ally, a thing that could 



RESULTS OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. 139 

have been foreseen from the first. Finally, we had been forced 
to conclude a peace on terms wholly inadequate to the sacrifices 
we had made. The war had cost about ^77,000,000, and 
had added ;^33,ooo,ooo to the National Debt. More than 
20,000 British soldiers had perished — the large majority, not 
by the bullets of the enemy, but sacrificed by the imbecile 
mismanagement which starved them into disease, and then 
sent them to die in comfortless hospitals. Our generals had 
certainly made no great reputation during the war, and the 
splendid courage by which the rank and file fought their way 
out of difficulties for which they were not responsible, had only 
barely staved off disaster on more than one occasion. Never- 
theless, the war was probably necessary : it would have been 
impossible to leave Russia free to carve up Turkey at her good 
pleasure; and, considering the state of tension that had been 
reached in 1854, it is more than doubtful whether Nicholas 
could have been stopped by mere demonstrations and diplomacy. 
It is true that in 1879 a firm attitude and a great show of naval 
power kept the Russians out of Constantinople; but in 1854 
they had not suffered so many checks, nor wasted so many 
lives and so much treasure, as in the later war, so that the Czar 
was then much less liable to pressure than was his son at the 
time of the Treaty of Berlin. The best, probably, that could 
be said for the Crimean war was that it taught us to know 
some of the worst points of our military organization, arid 
raised the spirit of national patriotism, which had tended to 
sink low during the long peace since Waterloo. It certainly 
did not bring about either of the two ends for which it had 
been undertaken — the reform of Turkey or the permanent 
crippling of Russia. At the most it staved off the Eastern 
Question, as a source of trouble, for some twenty years. 

In home politics the main result of the war was to put Lord 
Palmers ton in office for the ten years that remained of his long 
life. Except for a short interval in 1858-59, he held the 
premiership continuously. This was the nation's mark of 



r40 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

gratitude for the vigour and energy with which he had conducted 

Suoremacv ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Lord Aberdeen and the 
of Lord exposure of the administrative scandals of the 

merston. Qj-imean winter. Pahiierston, though always 
posing as a Whig, remained in many points true to the traditions 
of the Canningite Tories, to whom he had belonged in his youth. 
He believed in a firm foreign policy and the protection of 
British interests wherever they were endangered. He thought 
that political reform had gone far enough in 1832, and had no 
desire to tamper with the constitution.! Small social and 
economic reforms he could tolerate, but he always found 
ingenious reasons for shelving the proposals of his more 
ardent followers when they tried to take up again the sort of 
legislation that had been predominant in the " thirties." The 
Radical members of his party chafed furiously against his 
apathetic attitude towards their projects, but till his death they 
could never succeed in getting their way. The fact was that 
the middle classes, in whose hands political power had lain 
since the Reform Bill, were very much of Palmerston's way of 
thinking, and had little or no wish to move on. They admired 
the old statesman's bustling and occasionally boisterous foreign 
policy, enjoyed his slightly cynical humour, and had every 
confidence in his sterling common sense. 

In many ways it was fortunate that domestic politics were in 

a very quiet state bet'A'een 1855 and 1865, for foreign affairs 

were always in a difficult and more than once in 

tioX with ' ^ dangerous condition. The source of trouble was 

Napoleon crenerally to be found in the tortuous and vacil- 

III 

lating line of conduct pursued by Napoleon III., 

who was always endeavouring to fish in troubled waters, and 
to maintain his difficult seat on the French throne by theatrical 
triumphs of the military or diplomatic sort. Though he 
maintained as a rule an appearance of friendship for England, 
yet we always found him a slippery ally, and were at least 
once on the verge of war with him. There is always a 



THE PERSIAN WAR. I4I 

temptation to a French military despot to think of revenging 
Waterloo. 

Our foreign troubles after the Peace of. Paris, however, were 
not all due to Napoleon. The first was a short Persian war, a 
sort of after-swell following in the wake of the 
Crimean struggle. The Shah Nasr-ed-din, acting ^^^ Persian 
under Russian influence, had tried to conquer 
Afghanistan and taken Herat. To cause him to desist, we sent 
a small force to the Persian Gulf, which seized the port of 
Bushire and pushed on into the country, till the Shah, whose 
troops showed little capacity for war, asked for peace and 
evacuated Herat (March, 1857). The little army under 
Outram and Havelock, which had won this success, was 
fortunately available for the suppression of the Great Indian 
Mutiny in the following summer. Of that fearful convulsion 
we shall have to speak in the chapter that deals with our 
Colonial empire. 

The second struggle in which we became involved was a 

quarrel with China in 1856. The governor of Canton, acting 

with the usual stupid arrogance and obstinacy of 

Chinese officials, had seized a vessel flying the Chinese 

' . war. 

English flag, and refused to apologize for his act. 

This led to an expedition against Canton, and ultimately to 

open war. But the troops which were sent, in 1857, for the 

invasion of China had to be diverted to India, and it was not 

till the Mutiny was at an end that we were able to resume our 

advance. In 1858, however, a fleet and army threatened Pekin, 

and after the forts of the Peiho river had been stormed, the 

emperor asked for peace, and received it on promising to 

make reparation, and to open several "treaty ports" to English 

trade by the Treaty of Tien-Tsing. These engagements were 

never carried out, and in 1859 we had again to bring pressure 

on the Chinese. This time we were leagued with the French, 

who had grievances of their own in the country. The Peiho 

forts were again stormed, Pekin taken, and the Summer Palace 



142 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURV. 

of the emperor plundered and burnt, as a punishment for the 

treacherous murder of some British envoys, who had been 

negotiating with the mandarins. Convinced that the "bar 

barians" were too strong for them, the Chinese court then 

made abject apologies, paid a fine of 8,000,000 taels of 

silver, and ratified the former treaty of Tien-Tsing (October, 

i860). 

Long before the lingering Chinese war had ended, England 

had been interested in grave troubles nearer home. In 

January, 181; 8, while the Indian Mutiny was still 
Attempted • ' „ • 

murder of ^agmg, and all our attention w^as concentrated 

Napoleon by upon its suppression, we were suddenly brought 

into collision with the French Government. 

Some republican fanatics in Paris, headed by an Italian 

named Orsini, had made an attempt to assassinate Napoleon 

III. by hurling explosive bombs at him as he drove to the 

opera. He escaped himself, but ten persons were killed and 

over one hundred injured by the deadly machines. The 

French press and people were naturally roused to fury, and 

when it was found that Orsini had organized his plot and made 

his bombs in London, they turned much of their anger against 

England. The emperor's ambassador wrote strongly worded 

despatches calling on Palmerston to give securities against the 

repetition of such conspiracies, and protesting that " persons 

placed beyond the pale of common rights and under the ban 

of humanity " found shelter in the English capital. Far more 

violent language was heard in Paris, and one famous address 

offered to the emperor by a number of French officers 

besought him to let them destroy " the infamous haunt in 

which machinations so infernal are planned." 

These threats roused an equal anger on this side of the 

Channel, where it was supposed that the emperor wished to 

bully the Government while our army was engaged in India, 

and a strong anti-French agitation arose. Palmerston, however, 

on this occasion did not go with the impulse of the moment. 



A SHORT CONSERVATIVE MINISTRY. 143 

He thought that something should be done to prevent London 

from becoming the centre of anarchist plots, and 

broudit in his "Conspiracy to Murder" bill, J^e**Con- 

, ° . . . spiracy to 

which made persons convicted of planning poli- Murder " bill 

tical assassinations liable to penal servitude for ~Y^f^^^ 
life, even if the crime was to take place be- 
yond seas. The measure was reasonable enough in itself, 
but so strongly was English national feeling excited at the 
moment, that Palmerston's measure was denounced as mere 
truckling to France. He was beaten by a small majority in 
the House of Commons, many Liberals joining the Tory oppo- 
sition, and had to resign office (February 19, 1858). 

According to the proper constitutional form, the Tories, 
headed by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, were now invited to 

form a ministry. They complied, thoush the ex- 

c ^ c, \ \ ■ u Lord Derby 

penment was from the first hopeless, smce they in office- 
were in a very decided minority in the House of Disraeli's 
„ rr., r , 11-, Reform Bill. 

Commons. Ihe gust of popular wrath which 

had swept Palmerston from office soon blew over, and the 
Conservatives had to recognize that they were only in power 
as stop-gaps. Mr. Disraeli, however, by a series of ingenious 
expedients, succeeded in tiding the new ministry over the 
whole session of 1858. In the next year his great idea was to 
bring in a Reform Bill, which would at once have the result of 
showing that the Tories were not hopeless reactionaries, and of 
embroiling the Liberals with the Radical wing of their party. 
The latter had long been asking for such measures, and it 
seemed that the Tories could hardly be opposed for bringing 
them forward. Disraeli's bill lowered the franchise in the 
counties, giving all occupiers of ;£io houses the vote, but at 
the same time proposed to qualify as electors all persons of 
education — graduates of universities, doctors, lawyers, and 
ministers of religion — as well as all persons who showed 
evidence of thrift by having ^60 in the savings-bank. There 
was a great deal to be said for these proposals, but the Liberals 



144 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

chose to laugh them out of court as " fancy franchises," and 
when the bill was rejected, Lord Derby had to dissolve 
Parliament (March, 1859) and to resign, when the new 
House showed itself as much in the power of his enemies as 
the last. 

This short Tory ministry in 1858-59 is mainly remembered 
for two useful pieces of work which it carried out. The first 
The Volun- ^^^^ ^^^ abolition of the East India Company, 
teer move- and the replacing of its administration in Hindo- 
"^ • Stan by a new Imperial Government (August, 

1858), a step which the Mutiny had made absolutely necessary. 
The second was the starting of the Volunteer movement in 
the spring of 1859. This last was the result of the threatened 
rupture with France in the previous year : the nation had been 
terrified at the idea of being caught in an unexpected war with 
an unscrupulous neighbour, when the whole army was abroad. 
By a very logical and at the same time patriotic impulse, it 
resolved to supply the much-needed army for home defence by 
taking arms itself. The moment that the scheme was broached 
it was received with enthusiasm ; before the end of the year 
180,000 men had been enrolled, who undertook to arm, clothe, 
and train themselves at their own expense, and to be ready to 
take the field whenever there should be danger of an invasion 
of the realm. The result has been to give England a second 
line of defence, which is now counted as a serious item in the 
national strength, though for some years it was not treated with 
much courtesy by War Office officials, or taken very seriously 
by old-fashioned members of the regular army. 

When Lord Palmerston returned to office in 1859 with his 
old colleagues at his back, he found himself face to face with 
.. a great European war. The French emperor had 
war of turned off on Austria the wrath which in 1858 had 

liberation. seemed to be directed against England. Posing 
as the champion of the rights of nationalities, he promised his 
aid to Sardinia, if she should attempt once more, as in 1848, 



UNION OF ITALY. 145 

to free the rest of Italy from Austrian tyranny. The great 
Sardinian minister Cavour took the hint, and began to urge his 
master, King Victor Emanuel, to arm. Remonstrances by the 
Austrian Government were soon followed by war, in which 
France at once joined. But after beating the Austrians at 
Magenta and Solferino, and clearing them out of Lombardy, 
Napoleon soon showed that he was no unselfish enthusiast, 
but a mere speculator. He suddenly made peace^ to the great 
disgust of the Italians, ceded Lombardy to Victor Emanuel, 
but paid himself by annexing to France the Sardinian province 
of Savoy, ,the ancient home of his ally's ancestors. Three 
reasons had guided the emperor to this ungenerous step : he 
did not wish to drive Austria to such extremity that she could 
never again be his friend, and he was somewhat afraid lest 
Prussia might attack him on the Rhine frontier while all his 
army was locked up in Lombardy. Moreover, he did not 
wish to create an Italian kingdom large enough to become 
a great European power. But in this last respect his selfish 
plans were foiled : deserted by France, the Italians finished 
the work for themselves. A series of insurrections in 1859-60 
expelled the petty princes of Central Italy, and in the latter 
year the patriot adventurer Garibaldi threw him- q -k ih' 
self into Sicily with a handful of followers, and The king- 
overturned in that island and in Naples the rule Italy, 
of the cruel and imbecile House of Bourbon. In every state 
a popular vote hailed Victor Emanuel of Sardinia as King of 
United Italy; only Rome and Venice failed to fall into the 
new kingdom, since they were held down, the one by French 
and the other by Austrian bayonets (February, 1861). 

On the progress of affairs in Italy the English cabinet and 
nation looked with much satisfaction, and Garibaldi received 
a splendid welcome when he visited Great Britain 

in 1862. But troubles were impending in other • Polish 

^ ° insurrection, 

quarters which were not to end so happily. The 

oppressed people of Poland made a desperate attempt at 



146 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

insurrection in 1862-63. Great sympathy was felt for them in 
this country, and I^ord John Russell even made intervention 
in their favour with the Russian Government. But we were 
not prepared to go to war with the Czar single-handed, and 
Napoleon III. would not listen to any further schemes in 
favour of oppressed nationalities after his experiences in Italy. 
Our appeals were quietly passed over by the Russians, and 
Poland was dragooned into submission. 

Much the same humiliation fell upon us in another matter 
in the succeeding year (1863-64). The German inhabitants 
of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were 
Schleswie- desirous of seceding from the kingdom of Den- 
Holstein mark. Count Bismarck, the unscrupulous and 

question. iron-handed minister of the new King of Prussia, 

gave them armed help, and persuaded Austria, for reasons of 
national sentiment, to do the same. Against two such enemies 
the unfortunate Danes could do nothing ; when their small 
army was driven northward, they made piteous appeals for aid 
to the powers of Western Europe. England was profoundly 
moved at the spectacle of the crushing of Denmark by the two 
great military powers, and proffered her good offices for the 
conclusion of peace. On this occasion it was hoped that 
Napoleon III. might give his aid, for he was growing very 
suspicious of Prussia and her prime minister. But once more 
the emperor proved a broken reed ; he had other schemes in 
hand, and would not interfere to help the Danes. With great 
reo-ret Palmerston had to confess that his intervention had 
come to nothing. Prussia and Austria forced Denmark to 
her knees, and made her cede not only the German districts 
of Holstein and Schleswig, but some purely Danish territory. 
These acquisitions the victorious powers then proceeded to 
parcel out among themselves, though they had pretended to 
take arms in order to enable them to attain their liberty as an 
independent German principality. 

Neither the Polish nor the Danish question had ever brought 



THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 147 

England within measurable distance of war. Palmerston's 
policy with regard to them, which Lord Derby -., . 
rather harshly described as " meddling and mud- can civil 
dling," had never committed us to any dangerous ^^^* 
step. But while these European struggles were in progress, 
another and a greater war was raging across the Atlantic, in 
which we were more than once nearly involved. This was the 
famous War of Secession, which started in May, 1861, and 
lasted till April, 1865. For many years there had been an 
ever-growing bitterness between the Northern and the Southern 
States of the American Union. The masses of the North were 
manufacturing and protectionist ; the South was ruled by an 
aristocracy of planters, was wholly agricultural, and had a 
strong desire for Free Trade. The natural grudges between 
them took form in bitter quarrels on two points, " state rights " 
and slavery. The Southern rice and cotton fields were worked 
by slave-labour; in the North there was a strong abolitionist 
party, which carried on a vigorous propaganda against the 
" divine institution," which now only survived elsewhere in 
benighted regions such as Brazil and Cuba. But though the 
question of slavery was at the bottom of much of the bitterness 
between North and South, the constitutional dispute about 
" state rights " came much more to the front at the beginning 
of the struggle. The wording of the American constitution 
made it quite possible to hold different views as to the powers 
and duties of the individual states whose alliance formed the 
Union. In the South the tendency was all in favour of local 
independence ; in the North more was thought of the central 
government and the rights of majorities. 

In i860 the " Democratic " party, which mainly represented 
the Southern State*, was defeated at the presi- 
dential election, and Abraham Lincoln, a " Re- Lincoln 
publican," from Illinois, who was known as an elected 
opponent of " state rights " and an abolitionist, ^^^^^ 
came into power in January, 1861. Seeing that the machinery 



148 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of government, which they had of late controlled, was about to 
slip from their hands, the Southerners resolved on desperate 
measures. In the spring that followed, eleven States seceded 
from the Union and formed a new league, to which they gave 
the name of the " Confederate States of North America." The 
Northern majority utterly refused to recognize the legality of 
the secession, and set to work at once to crush the malcontents 
by force of arms. War at once broke out along the whole 
frontier from Virginia to Missouri. At first the Confederates 
proved fully able to maintain themselves on land, but at sea 
they were utterly outmatched, for the whole regular navy 
had passed into the hands of the North, which also owned 
nine-tenths of the seafaring population of the States. The 
Federals at once established a blockade of all the southern 
ports ; at first it was intermittent and ineff'ective, but it grew 
more and more real, till at last " blockade-runners " could only 
leave or enter the harbours of the Confederates by the happiest 
combinations of luck and skill. 

Great Britain was affected in the most acute fashion by the 
war of Secession. Not only were we accustomed to draw great 
quantities of rice and tobacco from the South, 
the^Amr— ^" but the Lancashire cotton industry was mainly 
The cotton dependent for its raw material on the American 
amine. plantations. India, Egypt, and other Eastern 

producers were only just commencing to appear in the Man- 
chester market as serious rivals of the Western cotton-grower. 
The gradual stoppage of the export of the Southern cotton 
as the Federal blockade grew strict, began to cause the 
most terrible distress in Lancashire, where many mills had to 
close from actual want of stuff to keep their machinery going. 
Skilled artisans were thrown out of work at the rate of ten 
thousand a week, and the evil seemed likely to grow worse 
and worse, for the war showed no signs of coming to 
an end. 

In 1 86 1, when it became evident that the Confederates were 



THE AFFAIR OF THE "TRENT." I49 

not likely to be suppressed in a few months, as the Northerners 

had hoped, Lord Palmerston had recognized them ^ ,. 

, , . . . , , , r eeling; in 

as belligerents. This action greatly vexed the England- 
Federals, who persisted in treating them as mere '^^f seizure 
, , , • r . , • 1 T^ 1 1- • • of the Trent. 

rebels destitute of any legal rights. Public opinion 

on this side of the Atlantic was much divided in its sympathies 
during the war. To some it appeared in the simple light of 
a struggle to abolish slavery, and such persons could not but 
side with the North. On the other hand, many thought that the 
right of secession ought not to be denied to a unanimous 
people, and that the South had as good a title to free itself as 
Italy had to drive out the Austrian. Others, again, disliked the 
Northerners as jealous commercial rivals and bitter opponents 
of free trade, and were glad to see them in difficulties. Poli- 
ticians, too, were to be found who thought that the balance of 
power in the world would be better kept if the vast republic in 
the West split asunder. On the whole, England was not 
unequally divided on the question ; if anything, the balance of 
sympathy was on the side of the South. But this was largely 
owing to unwise action on the part of President Lincoln's 
government, who did their best to put themselves in the wrong. 
In 1862 the captain of a Federal man-of-war committed an 
extraordinary breach of international law, by stopping and 
searching on the high seas the English mail steamer T/r/if, in 
order to take from it two Confederate envoys who were travel- 
ling from Havana to Europe. The ship was voyaging between 
two neutral ports, and the envoys were manifestly non- 
combatants, but the United States authorities refused to see 
the error of their ways, and only surrendered Messrs. Mason 
and Slidell after a long and acrid controversy, and when Lord 
Palmerston had actually begun to hurry a considerable army 
into Canada. This ungracious act was long remembered with 
bitterness. 

The state of Lancashire, too, was well calculated to exasperate 
British opinion. By the summer of 1862 the whole of the 



I50 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

cotton manufacturing district was in a state of semi-starvation, 

T r and the cotton famine grew worse in the winter 

Increase of ° 

the cotton that followed. The population was only kept 
famine. alive by lavish charity. More than ;£"2, 000,000 

were subscribed for their aid, besides ;^6oo,ooo contributed by 
Government. The distribution was so energetically and skill- 
fully made that actual starvation was kept at bay, and the 
death-rate of Lancashire was no worse than that of the rest of 
England. But the misery suffered was acute, and it was not 
till 1863 that it commenced to abate, as cotton was brought in 
from new and distant sources of supply to fill the place of the 
missing: bales from Charleston and New Orleans. 

After balancing from one side to the other during the years 
1862-63, the tide of victory began to flow definitely in favour 
The Alabama °^ ^^^ Federals during 1864. The South was 
—End of the exhausted even by her victories, and her supplies 
^^^' of men and money were running too low to 

enable her to cope much longer with an adversary who could 
draw upon double her population and four times her wealth. 
In these latter years of the war, the desperate resolve of the 
Confederates to strike at their victorious foe in every possible 
manner was shown by their reckless use of privateering, which 
was destined to bring England into trouble, and to give the 
Federals a legitimate grievance. It is, of course, illegal for 
neutrals to fit out warships for a belligerent, but Southern 
agents more than once succeeded in getting ships prepared 
in English dockyards, and then passed out to sea in order to 
become Confederate privateers. The case of the Alabama is 
the best known. This vessel was denounced to the Govern- 
ment by the United States minister as being a disguised war- 
ship, which was indeed the fact. But the authorities were 
unduly slow in ordering her detention. She slipped out of 
Liverpool by night, got to sea, and became a terror to Northern 
shipping for some two years. For the cabinet's slackness 
England had somewhat later to pay the tremendous bill of 



DEATH OF PALMERSTON. 151 

the Alabama claims. The American war came to an end 
April, 1865, with the fall of Richmond, the Confederate 
capital, and the surrender of the Southern armies. 

Palmerston survived to see the struggle finish, but died a 
few months later (October 18, 1865) ; he had kept up his 
power of work to the last, though he had reached 
the ripe age of eighty-one. With his removal plurjlr^t 
from the scene a new epoch in English politics 
begins, in which foreign affairs were no longer to be so all- 
important, nor domestic politics so dull as they had been 
in the days of the last of the Whig prime ministers. The 
tendency towards democratic reforms and general change, 
which Palmerston had succeeded in stifling during his own 
day, broke out strongly when he was gone. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DISRAELI AND GLADSTONE. 
1865-1885. 

Modern politics in Great Britain may practically be said to 
begin at the death of Lord Palmerston ; as long as the Liberal 
Th Id party was still generalled, and to a great extent 

Liberal officered, by the old Whigs, the great problems 

P^rty* which had started at the time of the first Reform 

Bill of 1832 were not much pressed towards solution. The 
governments of the last thirty years had done much in the 
way of social and economic reform, but they had repeatedly 
shelved the larger political and constitutional question as to 
whether Great Britain was to become a democracy or not. 
In so doing they w^ere but following the wishes of the majority 
of their constituents. The " ten-pound householders," in 
whose hands political power had been deposited by the first 
Reform Bill, were mainly drawn from the middle classes, and 
had no particular desire to see themselves swamped in the 
electoral body by the extension of the franchise. The farmers 
and shopkeepers of the United Kingdom w^ere divided not 
very unequally between the two political camps : the Whig 
majority among them, which had been overwhelming in 1832, 
was much smaller in 1865, for the old prejudice against the 
reactionary Toryism of Castlereagh and Lord Eldon had been 
gradually forgotten, except in Scotland and Ireland, where for 
fifty years an enormous preponderance of Liberal members 



THE TENDENCY TO DEMOCRACY. 153 

was always returned. But outside the body of electors there 
still remained the great unenfranchised masses, the multitudes 
which had been stirred by the Chartists in the forties, and 
which were now very inadequately represented in Parliament 
by the Radical wing of the Liberal party. 

Political agitation generally languishes when times are 
prosperous and wages high, and the internal state of the 
United Kingdom had been so flourishing of late ^j^^ ^ 
that very little had been heard of the democratic chiled" '^^"" 
cries that had been so loud in the days of "^^^ses. 
Chartism. But there was always below the surface a good 
deal of discontent at the present distribution of political power, 
and a certain survival of the old Chartist delusion that with 
the franchise would come practical and personal profits to 
those who were still excluded from the voting lists. Unless 
we remember the existence of this widespread feeling among 
the masses, the change in the policy of the Liberal party after 
Palmerston's death appears unintelligible. Among the leading 
men of that party, and even in the cabinet itself, there were 
many politicians who were convinced that something ought 
to be done to satisfy these aspirations. They thought that 
the attention of the country had been devoted far too much 
of late to foreign affairs, and that widespreading measures of 
internal reform, both constructive and destructive, were long 
overdue. 

The most prominent man among these advanced members 
of the Liberal party was Mr. William Ewart Gladstone, who for 
the last six years had been Palmerston's Chancellor 
of the Exchequer. He had originally been a QUd^^^^*^ °^ 
Peelite Tory, but had followed Lord Aberdeen in 
1852, and had been absorbed with the rest of his supporters in the 
Liberal ranks. Once committed to that party, he had become 
a member of its progressive wing, and had for some time chafed 
against the policy of stagnation or of petty administrative 
reforms which Palmerston had imposed on his colleagues 



154 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

during the last ten years. There can be no doubt that he was 

already guided by the idea which he openly formulated many 

years later — that it is the duty of a statesman to watch the 

public mind, and to endeavour to carry out the policy that 

" the sufficient number " dictates. Most politicians in England 

have wished to impose their own convictions on their party : 

the theory that the chiefs should make it their duty to ascertain 

and to carry out the latent or half-expressed wishes of their 

followers rather than their own, rests on the very democratic 

notion that the majority must always be in the right, and that 

special political training and individual knowledge count for 

little in the long run. It is doubtful whether Gladstone would 

have subscribed to this wording of the idea, but his conduct 

amounted to a practical carrying of it out. Put in the vaguer 

form of the aphorism that "We must trust the people," it 

commended itself to him and his followers. The Liberal 

watchwards in the later sixties were "Peace, Retrenchment, 

and Reform" — a combination of words that would not have 

sounded very pleasantly in Lord Palmerston's ear, for he was 

a lover of a spirited foreign policy, a considerable spender of 

money, and a confirmed doubter as to the necessity of further 

political changes. He saw what was coming, and had remarked 

shortly before his death that " whenever that man (Gladstone) 

gets my place, we shall have strange doings." 

Gladstone's reputation in 1865 rested largely upon his very 

successful Free-Trade budgets of the last seven years. In a 

^, ^ . , time when the national prosperity (in spite of the 
Gladstone's r ■ - oi \: \ u a u 

popular Lancashire cotton famme m 1862-63) had been 

budgets. ^gj.y great, he had been confronted with such a 

flourishing revenue that he could announce a surplus every 

year. This surplus he had employed in the most popular way, 

by using it to take off nearly all the import duties on food-stuffs, 

such as tea and sugar, and on articles of daily consumption, 

such as paper and tallow. In all, between 1859 and 1865, he 

reduced the number of articles on which duty was paid from 



GLADSTONE AND HIS BUDGETS. 155 

419 to 48. Enthusiastic admiration was raised among his 
party by the success of his experiment, for the revenue seemed 
to increase the more for every item that he removed from the 
list of things taxable. We can now see that the sudden growth 
in national wealth, registered by this rise of receipts, was to a 
large extent due partly to a successful commercial treaty with 
France, partly to the removal of the United States from the 
field as a commercial rival during the disastrous War of 
Secession. Their shipping interest has to this day never 
recovered the blow, and their carrying trade had passed 
almost entirely into English hands. It is easy to say now that 
it requires no extraordinary genius to deal with the series of 
surpluses caused by years of exceptional prosperity, and that 
there is no financial magic in the wholesale remission of taxation 
on articles of consumption. To-day, indeed, the murmur is 
often heard that we have cut down tot) far the list of dutiable 
articles, and trust overmuch to the small number of commodities, 
such as wine, spirits, and tobacco, which still contribute to the 
revenue when imported. But in 1865 Gladstone's budgets 
seemed the cause rather than the effect of national prosperity, 
and no one ventured to doubt his financial omniscience. 
Every one who paid less for his pound of tea or his newspaper 
could look upon him as a personal benefactor. 

Gladstone was not, however, destined to succeed immediately 
to the vacant place of premier. The veteran Lord John 
Russell — now Earl Russell — still survived, and j d T h 
though he had consented to serve under Palmer- Russell's 
ston, it was not to be expected that he would '^^^^^"^ ^"^' 
give way to a younger man. The Liberal party took him 
as their head in November, 1865, and he held office from 
that date till June, 1866; the rest of the ministry remained 
practically unchanged. Russell's reign was destined to be 
short: he was still honestly devoted to the ideas of 1832, and 
brought in a Reform Bill destined to redeem the old pledges 
of the Liberal party which Palmerston had so persistently 



156 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

shelved. It was a very moderate measure, reducing the 
qualification for the franchise in the counties to ;£ 14, while in 
the boroughs the house of £,"] was to be substituted for the 
house of ;£"io as the lowest Umit of occupation conferring the 
vote. It was calculated that these changes would add about 
400,000 electors to the 2,000,000 already in existence, so that 
the balance of power would still have remained in the hands 
of the middle classes. 

The Tories naturally opposed the bill, on the ground that 
it was in no way superior to their own abortive measure which 

Disraeli had formulated in 1859. But it is more 
of Adullam." surprismg to find that a section of the Liberal 

party also fought against it. A number of 
members who shared Palmerston's views, and had a rooted 
dislike to any further advance in the direction of democracy, 
declared that the bill was wholly unnecessary, and affirmed no, 
real principle of value. They banded themselves into a small 
party of thirty or forty strong, which Gladstone in derision called 
" the Cave of Adullam " — because to it, as to David of old, 
fled " every one who was in distress, and every one who was 
discontented." The second reading of the Reform Bill was 
only passed by a majority of five in face of their opposition, 
and finally the Tories and " Adullamites " succeeded in carrying 
an amendment which wrecked the whole of the Government's 
scheme. Lord Russell thereupon resigned (June, 1866), and 
the queen sent for the Conservative leader, Lord Derby, and 
invited him to form a ministry. 

Once more, as in 1858, Lord Derby and his lieutenant 
Benjamin Disraeli endeavoured to compass the difficult feat of 
L d D b carrying on the government of the country without 
prime a majority in the House of Commons at their 

minister. back. For the Adullamites refused to coalesce 

with the Conservative party, and, quite contented to have 
wrecked Lord Russell's Reform Bill, fell back again into the 
Liberal ranks. 



DISRAELI AND HIS VIEWS. 157 

The tenure of office of the Derby-Disraeli ministry in 
1866-68 forms an important landmark in the history of the 
Conservative party. It had now quite outlived 
its old traditions : Protection, as a matter of the new- 
practical politics, was dead ; mere opposition to Conserva- 
all change, on the principle that all changes must 
be for the worse, had ceased to be a necessary part of the 
Tory creed since the days of Peel. Disraeli had long been 
engaged in the process which he called "educating his 
party" — that is, of substituting a positive programme of 
measures to be carried out for a negative programme of 
measures to be resisted and staved off. He always continued 
to display the greatest attachment to the old Tory principles 
of loyalty to Church and Queen, and to show an almost 
ostentatious care for the " landed interest," the farmers and 
landowners who had long formed the backbone of his party. 
But he brought to the front two ideas which had hitherto formed 
no very conspicuous part of the Conservative programme. 
The first was the conception of England as an Imperial 
world-power, interested in European politics, but still more 

interested in the maintenance and development 

c u 4. 1-1 JTJ- • rj.,'- Imperialism 

of her vast colonial and Indian empire. This is —Conserva- 

the notion which friends and enemies, using the tism and the 
word in very different senses, now call " Im- 
perialism." The second ruling thought in Disraeli's mind was 
the conviction that the Conservative party ought to step 
forward as a rival to the Liberal party in commanding the 
sympathies and allegiance of the masses. This aim he would 
not carry out in any democratic spirit ; he did not intend to 
ask the people to state its demands in order that he might 
obsequiously carry them out. But he wished to persuade it 
that the Conservatives had their own plans for social, economic, 
and political reform, which were just as honest and far more 
rational than those of the Liberals. Everything should be 
done^r the people, if not fy the people. 



158 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Each of these great ideas of DisraeU's was developed at a 
period very favourable for their success. The Liberal chiefs 

of the generation which followed Palmerston were 
R l' ^ >; distinctly wanting in a full sense of the greatness 

of the empire. They have rather cruelly been 

called " Little Englanders," for their dislike for expansion and 

their timid colonial policy. In their zeal for economy, they 

loathed the expenses which empire entails. Some of them 

occasionally talked as if it was inevitable that our colonies, 

when they grew strong enough, should " cut the painter " — as 

the Americans had done in 1776 — and refuse to follow any 

longer in the wake of the mother country. They let the army 

and navy run so low that in moments of national danger we 

found ourselves in a perilous state of weakness. An appeal to 

the people against such a policy was certain of success, for the 

people has always been convinced of the reality of its imperial 

_ „ ,. destinies. So, too, with regard to domestic 

Liberalism ' ' . ° . 

and social matters, there were many things which favoured 
reform. Disraeli's appeal to the masses. The Liberals of 

1865 were steeped in the orthodox political economy; they 
were ready enough to grant political reforms, or to carry out 
Free Trade to its logical extreme, but many of them shrank 
from social reforms, on the ground that by interfering between 
man and man they were sapping the moral responsibility of the 
individual, or meddling with the natural law of competition 
which rules the world, or trying to make the state discharge 
functions for which it is not naturally designed. The old 
Liberal " doctrinaires " were very chary of taking in hand the 
kind of domestic legislation which would appeal to the 
sympathies of the masses, so that Disraeli had a fair chance 
of bidding for their support. 

The Derby-Disraeli ministry chanced upon very stirring 
times both at home and abroad ; in the very week in which 
they assumed office (June 19-26, 1866) a great European war 
broke out. The greedy partners, Austria and Prussia, who 



THE RISE OF PRUSSIA. 159 

had joined to plunder Denmark in 1864, fell out over the 
distribution of the plunder. Count Bismarck, the 
able and unscrupulous Prussian premier,, con- between 
trived to put Austria in the wrong, to induce Prussia and 
Italy to attack her from the rear in order to re- 
cover Venice, and to fall upon her before she was prepared for 
hostilities. The Italians were beaten off; but the Prussians, 
largely aided by the " needle-gun " — the first breech-loading 
rifle used in European war — went on from victory to victory, 
till they completely crushed the Austrians at the battle of 
Koniggratz (July 3, 1866). After a struggle of only seven 
weeks, the Emperor Francis Joseph asked for peace, and 
obtained it on condition of giving up his position in Germany. 
Prussia made herself head of a new " North German Confeder- 
ation," and annexed Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfort, and the 
kingdom of Hanover. So ended the old principality over 
which the Guelfs had ruled so long, and whose fortunes had 
been for more than a century (1714-1837) linked with those of 
England. The Austro-Prussian war was no concern of ours, 
but its consequences deeply affected us, for Prussia emerged 
from it a first-rate power, which she had hardly been during the 
days of the weak King Frederick William IV. (1840-1861). 
But William I. and his minister Bismarck soon caused those 
days of obscurity to be forgotten. 

The only foreign hostilities in which England was engaged 
during these years took place in Africa. A half-crazy despot, 
Theodore, King of Abyssinia, seized and im- ^, ., 
prisoned a number of British subjects, including sinian expe- 
two envoys who had been sent to conclude a ^^^^^^' 
treaty with him. When he proved deaf to all requests for 
their release, a small army was sent against him from 
India, under Sir Robert Napier. Hampered more by diffi- 
culties of roads and supplies than by the enemy, Napier 
forced his way far inland to the fortress of Magdala, the 
enemy's capital. The Abyssinian host was defeated by the 



i6o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

mere baggage-guard of the English force. The captives were 
surrendered, and Theodore blew out his own brains when he 
saw his army dispersed and his stronghold stormed (April, 1868). 
Far more important than this trifling war were the domestic 
troubles of the United Kingdom in 1866-68. Ireland, which 

had remained in the quiet of exhaustion since 
outbreaks. ^^^ famine of 1845 and Smith O'Brien's fiasco in 

1848, was now in one of her periodical fits of 
effervescence. It was mainly due to encouragement from 
America : when the Federal armies were disbanded in 1865, 
thousands of Irishmen, who had gone through the civil war, 
were thrown upon the world with a good military training and 
an ingrained hatred for England. Many of them engaged in a 
scheme for raising rebellion in Ireland, while others undertook 
to invade Canada in order to distract the attention of the 
British Government. They had hopes of being able to drag 
the United States into the turmoil, for the ravages of the 
Alabama and her consorts were bitterly remembered across 
the Atlantic. Emissaries, who crossed to Ireland, enrolled 
many thousands of enthusiastic young men in the " Fenian 
Brotherhood " — an association which took its strange title from 
the ancient name of the tribal militia of the Celtic kingdoms 
of the Dark Ages. Attempts, which fortunately failed, were 
made to tamper with the Irish regiments garrisoned across 
St. George's Channel. But the inevitable mismanagement, 
shirking, and treachery, which have distinguished all Irish 
risings, showed as clearly in 1867 ^s in 1848 or 1798. The 
widespread plans of the Fenians ended everywhere in 
ludicrous failure. Some thousands of them crossed into 
Canada, only to be easily dispersed by the loyal militia. The 
United States Government, though it did not take adequate 
pains to prevent their raids, refused to be drawn into collusion 
with them. The insurrection in Ireland only burst out at one 
or two isolated points, instead of spreading over the whole 
country. It resulted in no more than some ill-planned attacks 



FENIAN OUTRAGES. l6i 

on police-barracks, and the insurgents fled into hiding when 
the troops came abroad. Some strange incidents in England 
attracted as much attention as the futile rising across the water. 
A large number of Liverpool Irish were implicated in a hair- 
brained scheme for seizing the stores and armoury at Chester. 
What they could have done if they had been successful does 
not sufficiently appear; but when 1500 of them had collected 
in the quiet old town, they found the police on the alert, and 
heard that a battalion of the Guards was expected from 
London, whereupon they mildly dispersed, save some dozens 
who were unfortunate enough to be arrested. The only 
exploits in which the Fenians showed any enterprise were two 
murderous attempts to release imprisoned members of their 
society. On the first occasion (September 18, 1867) tv/enty 
men with revolvers waylaid a prison van escorted by seven 
police, in the streets of Manchester, and took out their com- 
rades within, after killing one and wounding four of the 
unarmed escort. The second attempt at rescue was still more 
reckless, and cost more lives. Some Fenian prisoners being 
confined in Clerkenwell jail, a gang of desperados placed a 
barrel of gunpowder against its outer wall and exploded it, 
thinking that their friends might escape in the confusion. The 
prisoners were not released, but in the neighbouring street four 
persons were killed, and more than a hundred — mainly women 
and children — injured (December 13, 1867). For these 
murders several Fenians were hung. I'hose who suffered for the 
Manchester crime are still honoured by anniversary services in 
Ireland, under the name of the " Manchester Martyrs." Deeds 
of this kind were calculated to irritate rather than to cow the 
British Government. The Conservative cabinet hurried troops 
into Ireland and raised special constables in England, but 
these precautions were hardly necessary. It was only at a 
somewhat later date that an English statesman was found to 
declare that murderous outrages brought the Irish question 
" within the sphere of practical politics." 

M 



i62 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

While the Fenian movement was giving trouble, Disraeli was 

engaged in the difficult task of governing without a majority in 

parliament. That he succeeded in doing so for 

Reform Bill ^^^ ^^^^ P^^^ ^^ ^^^ years is an astoundmg testi- 
mony of his dexterity. All through 1867 he was 
engaged with his Reform Bill, drawn up on the same lines as 
that which he had before proposed in 1859. It differed from 
Lord Russell's scheme mainly in keeping the county franchise 
high (at ^20 instead of ^14), and in insisting on the "fancy 
franchises " that Disraeli had sketched out in his earher bill, 
which gave the vote to all persons owning ;£t,o in the savings- 
bank, or ^50 invested in the public funds, or paying £^1 of 
direct taxes, or who had received a liberal education. All 
those possessing these qualifications were to become electors 
if they were not already on the rolls ; while if they were, 
they obtained a second vote in virtue of their evidence of 
thrift or superior instruction. 

The Conservative Reform Bill was not so successful as 
Disraeli had hoped. Several members of the Government — 
of whom Lord Cranborne, the present Marquis of 
intheDaric" Salisbury, was one — resigned office because they 
regarded the measure as a concession to demo- 
cracy. On the other hand, the Liberal party declared that the 
bill was not sufficiently broad and far-reaching, and proceeded 
to cut it about by unending amendments. Public opinion in 
the large towns was already excited on the question of Reform, 
and very shortly after the ministry had taken office, the famous 
riot in which the railings of Hyde Park were torn down (July, 
1866) had reminded observers of the old Chartist days. Disraeli 
was very anxious to show the world that Conservatives could 
frame Reform Bills as successfully as their opponents, and was 
resolved to make a serious bid for popularity with the masses. 
Accordingly, when the Liberals began to mutilate his measure 
by amendments, he did not resign, but accepted all the 
changes, affirming that they did not affect the principle of the 



DISRAELI'S REFORM BILL. 163 

bill. His scheme for the double vote was shorn away, his 
" fancy franchises " were struck ofif, but he still went on. He 
was compelled to accept the lowering of the household fran- 
chise to ^5 in the towns and ^12 in the counties, and to give 
votes to all lodgers paying ^10 a year. Thus the measure 
became very democratic in form, more so than many even 
among the Whigs desired ; but Disraeli persevered, and " took 
the Leap in the Dark" by bestowing the franchise on the masses. 
Save the agricultural labourers in the rural districts, practically 
all householders in the United Kingdom were now given the 
power of becoming electors. Among the groans of timid Con- 
servatives and the scoffs of angry Liberals, who complained 
that Disraeli had stolen the credit of granting Reform from 
them, the bill became law in August, 1867. 

For another session Disraeli continued to cling to office, 
holding out many schemes of social and economic legislation 
which he promised to put in practice. He was ^. y ., . 
now possessed of complete control over his party, return to 
for in 1868 his aged colleague Lord Derby °"^^®' 
retired from politics, and there was no other member of the 
cabinet who could exercise the least influence over him. 
But his dexterous parliamentary tactics could not save him. 
The Liberals seized on the Irish question, and began to 
clamour for remedial legislation for the sister island as a cure 
for the disease of Fenianism. They began with pointing 
out the Established Church of Ireland as an abuse and an 
anachronism ; Gladstone carried in the Commons a resolution 
demanding its disestablishment, and, defeated on this point, 
Disraeli could only resign or dissolve parliament. He chose 
the latter alternative ; the new constituencies created by the 
Reform Bill of 1867 gave the Liberals a crushing majority of 
120, and the Conservatives had to retire from office (Decem- 
ber, 1868). 

Gladstone, coming into office with such a splendid majority 
at his back, was able at once to take in hand all the changes 



I64 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and reforms for which he and his followers had been yearning 

^, , , durino; the days of Palmerston. No party ever 

Gladstone ° ^ . , , j r 1^1 

prime came mto power with so many pledges to tulhl, 

minister. ^^^^ ^^ Liberals made a conscientious attempt to 

discharge them all. They had to prove that they were the real 

friends of the people, and that Disraeli was a mere charlatan. 

" Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform " were to reign everywhere. 

The first problem taken in hand by Gladstone was that 

of Ireland. He held that Irish discontent was not sentimental 

_. , ,. ^ and national, but caused by practical grievances — 
Disestablish- , . , , , j 1 

ment of the a view which later events have proved to be 

Irish Church, untenable. Then, however, the whole Liberal 
party pinned its faith to the theory. The first measure taken 
in hand was the disestablishment of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church of Ireland. As it existed in 1869,. it was certainly an 
odd anomaly, for, though it claimed to be the State Church of 
the island, not more than one-fifth of the population belonged 
to it. In spite of the opposition of the Irish bishops and 
gentry, it was deprived of its endowments and its official 
status. But it retained its churches and cathedrals, and its 
clergy received personal compensation for their losses. The 
effect on the Irish Church was excellent : when freed from 
State control and allowed to govern itself it showed unexpected 
strength and vigour, and has been ever since a growing and 
flourishing body. Nonconformist enthusiasts who dreamed in 
1868 that the Church of England might soon suffer the same 
fate as the sister establishment, have long since got over their 
disappointment. 

Having, as he hoped, done something to conciliate Irish 
Romanists by the Disestablishment Act, Gladstone then pro- 
ceeded to deal with the more difficult question 

The Irish ^^ ^^ land. The absolute dependence of the 
Land Act. , ,, , , 

poor peasantry of Ireland on landlords who w^ere 

often absentees, and sometimes careless of all duties and bent 

on raising the last possible farthing of rent, was believed to be 



GLADSTONE'S IRISH POLICY. 265 

the most fruitful source of Irish disloyalty. By the Land Act 
of 1870, Gladstone gave the tenant the right to be compensated, 
if his farm was taken from him, for any improvements he might 
have made on his holding. He also gave him the right to sell 
the "goodwill" of his land to his successor. This made 
the tenant a kind of joint-owner with the landlord of his farm, 
since he was given a valuable interest in it, often worth many 
times the annual rent. The Government was also under the 
idea that prosperity and quiet would be promoted by the estab- 
lishment of peasant proprietors. Loans at easy rates were 
therefore offered to any one who wished to purchase his farm, 
if the landlord could be induced to sell. 

This well-intentioned measure, however, had not the effect 
that might have been expected. Instead of being satisfied 
with their new advantages, the peasantry imbibed « 
the idea that they ought to get complete possession discontent 
of their farms for nothing. They wished to see a *^°"*^i"u6s. 
violent end made of all " landlordism," and were not in the 
least grateful for Gladstone's benevolent wishes. There was 
national sentiment as well as agrarian discontent at the bottom 
of the trouble. It was very discouraging to the Liberals that 
the year 1870 was so rife in murders, outrages, and riots that 
a " Peace Preservation Act " had to be passed, and extra 
troops sent into the country. Attempts to bribe Ireland have 
always failed. , 

A less questionable success was gained by the Government in 
their series of Acts dealing with national education. These 
were, on the whole, very beneficent. A bill for 
the revision of endowed and grammar schools, 4 a t *^" 
passed in 1869, did a good deal for the secondary 
education of the country, by bringing many well- endowed but 
inefficient schools under Government inspection. But the 
Elementary Education Act of 1870 was far more important. It 
affirmed the principle that the State was bound to provide gra- 
tuitous instruction for all the children in the realm. Attendance 



i66 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was made compulsory, and wherever sufficient schools did 
not exist they were built with public money. In the thirty 
years which have elapsed since that day the proportion of 
illiterate persons in Great Britain has gone down to a neglige- 
able quantity. 

Another admirable domestic reform of the Gladstone Govern- 
ment was the Ballot Act. Down to this period voting at 
parliamentary elections was open, and the poll 

The Ballot extended over many days. This arrangement 
Act, 1872. •' ■' .... 

gave ample scope for two abuses, mtmiidation 

and bribery, for it could be at once ascertained how every man 

voted. The introduction of secret voting made intimidation 

almost impossible, and bribery very risky, since the buyer of 

votes could never be certain that the recipient of his money 

had actually voted for him. A distinct improvement in the 

purity and decency of elections was seen; but the old evils 

were not wholly extirpated till more than ten years later, when 

the imposition of heavy penalties on both briber and bribed 

finally crushed the old scandals and abuses. 

The sphere in which the Gladstone Government showed 

most unhappily was that of foreign policy. Indeed, from Lord 

^ . Palmerston's death down to the appearance of 

Foreign . 

policy of the Lord Rosebery, the Liberals were smgularly 

Liberals. unfortunate in their dealings with external powers. 

They were so wedded to a consistent peace policy, that it 

required no ordinary provocation on the part of a foreign 

state to stir them up into remonstrance, much more into 

resistance. The fact was known abroad, and regularly traded 

upon by our neighbours. 

The most notable event in the history of Europe which 

occurred during the tenure of office by the Gladstone ministry 

was the Franco-German war of 1870-71. Jealous 

The rranco- ^f ^^^ ^^^^ power of Prussia, and desirous of 
German war. . ^ . 

covering many mistakes of policy by another 

successful war. Napoleon III. rushed unprepared into a 



THE FRANCO GERMAN WAR. 167 

Struggle with united Germany. Bismarck had foreseen the 
attack, and did what he could to precipitate it, for he was 
rightly convinced that the well-organized Prussian state was 
quite capable of crushing the French. His prescience was 
rewarded; Napoleon III. with nearly 100,000 men were 
surrounded and captured at Sedan, and when a republic re- 
placed the monarchial government in France, its efforts 
proved as unavailing as those of its predecessor. Paris 
surrendered after a long siege (January 28, 187 1), and peace 
was only granted on the condition of the cession of Alsace- 
Lorraine and the payment of a vast war-indemnity. When, 
after the treaty of Versailles, a wicked and senseless civil 
war broke out among the vanquished, and Paris was again 
beleagured and taken by French troops (March-May, 187 1), 
it seemed as if France was likely to be permanently removed 
from the list of great powers. 

England had very properly kept out of the Franco-German 
War, but some of its consequences affected her very directly. 
When Napoleon III. fell, the Russian Government d . , 
formally disavowed the Black Sea Clauses of the the Treaty 
treaty of 1856 which had terminated the Crimean ®^ P^'^^s. 
War, and declared that it would build a warfleet in the Euxine 
when it chose. The French emperor, the other guarantor of 
the Treaty of Paris, having disappeared, England was com- 
pelled to take the affront mildly. It would have been mad 
to make the Russian declaration a castes belli. 

If the Gladstone cabinet must be held guiltless in this 
matter, the same cannot be said with regard to its action in 
the matter of our dispute with the United States, 
which came to a head in 187 1. The subject in The>4/a6«ma 
question was the claim of the Americans to be 
compensated by England for all the damage done by the 
Alabaftia and her consorts''^ to Federal shipping in 1863-65. 
There can be no doubt that the Palmerston Government had 

* See p. 150. 



i68 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

been slack and slow in the matter of detaining the Alabama, 
and that the United States had a legitimate grievance against 
us. But there is a long step between conceding this, and 
allowing that England should pay for all the mischief done 
by the Confederate cruisers. We had certainly a far greater 
cause of complaint against the States for allowing their territory 
to be made the base of the two Fenian attacks on Canada. 
Yet we allowed the Americans to make demands, not only for 
direct damages, but for indirect— such as the discouragement 
given to American trade and the prolongation of the War 
of Secession. The Liberal cabinet took this bullying very 
meekly, and suggested arbitration. A court of foreign arbi- 
trators sitting at Geneva (June, 1872) gave the case against 
England, and bade her pay more than ^3,000,000— a sum 
so considerable that when all the A/ab-una claims had been 
liquidated, there was still a considerable surplus left in the 
hands of the American Government. A second arbitration, 
^^ ^ made a little later, gave to the Americans the 

Juan arbitra- island of St. Juan, off the coast of British 
tion. Columbia, which had been for some time in 

dispute between the two powers. Gladstone was under the 
impression that in submitting both questions to arbitration 
we had shown a regard for abstract justice and a laudable 
solicitude for peace. But public opinion in England generally 
took the view that we had made an undignified submission to 
threats, and had not been treated fairly in the awards. 

Only one satisfactory result came from the difficulties of 
foreign policy in the years 1871-72. Convinced that if we 

^ J ,„ had been unexpectedly drawn into war our army 

Cardwells . ,.. ,.,^. . 

military was not m a condition to do itself justice, owing 

reforms. ^^ ^j^g ?,^mQ defects that had been seen in the 

Crimean war, the Government took in hand its reorganization. 
The arrangements made by Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary for 
War, were for the most part wise and well considered. Want 
of reserves was the greatest deficiency in the existing system ; 



CARDWELL'S MILITARY REFORMS. 169 

accordingly recruits were for the future to be enlisted, not for 
twenty years, but for short service — seven years with the colours 
and five in the reserve. Thus, when war broke out, some 
60,000 or 80,000 trained men could be available to fill up the 
ranks of battalions which suffered in the field. Moreover, 
there was an attempt made to localize the regiments — battalions 
linked in pairs were assigned to every region in the United 
Kingdom. In theory each was to draw its recruits entirely 
from its own district, and one battalion was always to be at 
home and one abroad. This system has never worked in a 
quite satisfactory manner; some corps have become closely 
connected with the counties to which they were assigned — 
others have not, and have failed to elicit any local enthusiasm. 
Moreover, our constant small wars have rendered it impossible 
to keep precisely half the army at home. It is only by the 
raising of a considerable number of riew battalions in 1898 
that some approach has been made to the full carrying out 
of Mr. Card well's scheme. A more serious objection to the 
short service scheme has been that the home-battalion of each 
pair tends to become over-burdened with recruits. The pro- 
portion of very young soldiers in it is often so large that its 
efficiency for the field has been doubted. On the other hand, 
the reserve has been a great success. Whenever called out, 
it has appeared in full numbers and admirable spirit. By its 
means the young battalions could certainly be brought up to 
proper strength and efficiency. 

One of Mr. Card well's other military reforms was the' 
abolition of an antique abuse, which nevertheless caused some 
murmuring on account of the way in which it was 
conducted. He wished to get rid of the " purchase the " pur- 
system," by which officers bought every step in chase" 

svstdii* 
rank, by compensating their seniors who were 

retiring or receiving promotion. It was an intolerable anomaly 
which often prevented poor and able men from rising, while 
rich but incapable officers bought promotion over their heads. 



I70 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Though compensation was promised to all who had obtained 
their commissions on the old plan, yet so much opposition was 
made to the " Purchase Bill," especially in the House of Lords, 
that Mr. Gladstone finally dropped the measure and decreed 
the abolition of purchase by a Royal Warrant, on the ground 
that the armed forces of the realm were subject in such matters 
to the direct authority of the Crown. This was technically 
correct, but the act was much criticized as tending to take the 
army out of the control of parliament. 

The last complete year of the Gladstone ministry, 1873, was 
much less fertile in legislation than its predecessors. It only 
P ., ^ produced a "Judicature Act" for the consolida- 

Gladstone's tion of the courts of law, and an abortive scheme 
ministry. f^j. ^.^^g establishment of an " Undenominational " 

University in Ireland, which was wrecked by the declaration of 
the Roman Catholic bishops that they would have nothing to 
do with it. Early in 1874 the prime minister dissolved 
Parliament, though it was not yet six years old, to the great 
surprise of both parties. He went to the country with a 
declaration that, if returned again to power, he should proceed to 
abolish the income tax. This declaration was more fitted to affect 
the middle classes than the masses ; and the latter, enfranchised 
in 1867, had now superseded the former as the depositaries of 
political power. To his own great surprise, Mr. Gladstone was 
beaten at the polls ; he was defeated partly on account of the 
general dissatisfaction with his foreign policy, but probably 
still more through the resentment of the countless class, trade, 
and local interests which he harassed by his widespreading 
legislation. The Conservatives came into office with a majority 
of more than fifty in February, 1874. 

Disraeli had now for the first time a real opportunity of 
showing what the new Conservatism was like. He was com- 
pletely master of his party, and had finished the process of 
" educating " it which he had begun twenty years before. In 
his six years' administration, 187 4-1 880, he was able to 



THE SUEZ CANAL SHARES. 171 

develop his policy in every direction that he chose. The two 

elements that went to make it, Imperialism abroad 

and cautious social reform at home, emerge very positimi of 

clearly in the annals of his tenure of power. If Disraeli as 

the former tendency seems to engross our attention 

more than the latter, it is largely because the lines of his 

ministry were cast in troublous days, when foreign policy 

became all-important. 

The first two years of the Disraeli ministry (1874-75) 

were a time of peace and quiet, notable mainly for the number 

of moderate and unostentatious measures of social 

and economic reform which the Government ^o^^^^'ya-tive 

legislation, 
succeeded in passing. Such were the Agricultural 

Holdings Bill, by which farmers obtained compensation for 
unexhausted improvements when giving up their land ; the 
Artisans' Dwellings Bill, which secured better housing for the 
workmen in great towns ; and the Friendly Societies Act, which 
did much towards securing the better management of the 
savings of the poor. 

The only striking event of this time was the interference of 
Disraeli in Egypt, in the matter of the Suez Canal shares, the 
first attempt of England to obtain a footing if' f p-i d H 
that country, where French influence had hitherto Egypt — The 
been predominant. The whole conditions of ^^^ Canal. 
Eastern trade had been changed in 1869-70 by the con- 
struction of a ship-canal through the Isthmus of Suez by the 
French engineer Lesseps. Its convenience attracted to the Red 
Sea route a growing proportion of the commerce which had 
hitherto gone to India, China, and Australia by the circuitous 
voyage round the Cape of Good Hope. It also put an end to 
the tiresome transhipment of goods and passengers landed at 
Alexandria, which had been necessary since the Overland 
Route * was adopted. Some three-fourths of the tonnage 
which passed through the canal was English, and yet the 

* See p. 113. 



172 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

control of the traffic was entirely in the hands of a grasping 
French company and a thriftless and oppressive Oriental 
despot. Luckily, the reckless extravagance of the Khedive 
Ismail landed him in financial difficulties, and while he was 
looking around for a purchaser for the 177,000 shares in the 
canal which he owned, the English Government stepped in 
with a prompt offer of ^4,000,000 in ready cash. The offer, 
made by telegram, was accepted, and Disraeli was able to 
announce that England had become the owner of an interest 
in the canal amounting to almost half its value. This 
acquisition put our position in Egypt on an entirely new footing. 
But it was not only a political advantage, but a splendid 
financial stroke. The shares are now worth six times what 
was given for them, and the interest on them is an appreciable 
item in the national revenue. 

In the following year, 1876, the political horizon of Europe, 
which had been fairly clear since the Franco-German war of 
Insurrections ^^7o~7i) began to grow overcast. An insur- 
in the Balkan rection in Bosnia, which had been troubling the 
eninsu a. Turkish Government for some time, began to grow 
serious and to draw the attention of the powers to the inter- 
minable Eastern Question. The Sultan Abdul- Aziz had taken 
no advantage of the long respite given to his realm by the 
Crimean war. In spite of many promises made by his brother 
and himself since 1854, the administration of the Ottoman 
empire remained as scandalous and oppressive as ever. The 
Porte had borrowed huge sums of money from Europe, but 
they had been employed, not to develop the empire, but to 
gratify the Sultan's caprices, or at the best to furnish his army 
with modern rifles and artillery. The Bosnian insurrection 
spread, and it was soon discovered that Russian emissaries, 
sent by patriotic Slavonic societies, were sustaining it, with or 
without the full consent of their Government. In the summer of 
1876 the princes of Servia and Montenegro took arms to aid 
the insurgents, and when the Servian troops were reinforced by 



THE BULGARIAN ATROCITIES. 173 

many thousands of Russian volunteers and placed under the 

command of a Russian general, it became evident that the 

Czar's ministers were at the bottom of the trouble. 

The first impulse of the English Government and people was 

to lend support to the Sultan, despite of his notorious misrule, 

in order to keep Russia out of the Balkan Penin- _, , ^ 

. . Ill/-' Gladstone 

sula. But any such intentions which the Con- denounces 

servative cabinet may have cherished were foiled ** Bulgarian 
by the barbarities of the Turks themselves. 
While the Ottoman army was concentrated on the Servian 
frontier, a rising broke out among the Bulgarians. In the 
absence of regular troops, the Sultan put it down by employing 
hordes of Circassians and armed Mohammedan villagers, who 
displayed the same horrible cruelty which had been seen in the 
Greek insurrection of 182 1, and was to be exhibited again in 
the Armenian massacres of 1897. When the news of the 
" Bulgarian Atrocities " reached England, Gladstone, who had 
nominally retired from politics in 1875, took the field again to 
denounce the Turks, and to protest against any action on the 
part of the English Government which might be held to 
encourage them. His crusade was completely successful; 
public opinion was so deeply stirred, that the premier had to 
appease it by declaring that Great Britain had no intention of 
bolstering up the effete and corrupt Ottoman power, but must 
confine herself to defending her own interests in the East. 

It was in no small degree owing to this turn of national feel- 
ing in England, that the Czar was encouraged in the next year 
to declare war on Turkey (April, 1877), and sent ^^^ Russo- 
his armies across the Danube to " deliver their Turkish 
Christian brethren from the infidel." The Otto- ^^'^• 
mans made a much better fight than had been expected : the 
central government was weak — the reckless Abdul-Aziz had 
just been murdered, and his successor, Murad V., was almost 
an imbecile— but the army was courageous and well equipped. 
The obstinate defence of Plevna kept the Russian troops in 



174 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Europe at bay for the whole autumn, and it was only when 
Plevna was starved out that the Russians burst over the 
Balkans at midwinter. Driving the remnants of the Turkish 
armies before them, they drew near Constantinople. At St. 
Stephano, not far from the gates of the city, they imposed on 
the Sultan a treaty by which he surrendered a large territory in 
Asia, and gave back the small slip at the Danube mouth which 
had been ceded by Russia after the Crimean war. The 
greater part of European Turkey was to be divided among 
Christian states, of which a new Bulgarian principality was to be 
the largest (March 3, 1878). 

Disraeli — or rather Lord Beaconsfield, as he must be called 
since his migration to the Upper House in 1877 — was de- 
termined not to let Russia settle the Eastern 
Lord^ea- question by herself. He informed the Czar's 
consfield — Government that the terms imposed on Turkey 
of Berlin* ^ must fee approved by a conference of all the 
powers. When no attention was paid to this 
demand, he sent a fleet up the Dardanelles, to the immediate 
vicinity of Constantinople ; called out the reserves ; obtained a 
grant of ^6, 000, 000 for war preparations from parliament; and 
began to move Indian troops into the Mediterranean. These 
menaces brought the Czar's advisers to terms, and, rather than 
face a new war, they consented that the St. Stephano treaty 
should be revised. The process was carried out by delegates 
of the seven great powers, meeting at Berlin under the presi- 
dency of Prince Bismarck (June, 1878). By the treaty of 
Berlin Russia kept her own conquests, but the proposed 
Bulgarian state was to be split in two, and other powers were 
to take slices of Turkey for themselves. Austria was to occupy 
Bosnia, Greece was promised Thessaly, and England received 
the Isle of Cyprus. In return for this grant, she undertook to 
guarantee the integrity of the Sultan's remaining dominions in 
Asia, and also to see that the long-promised reforms were 
carried out therein. 



"PEACE WITH HONOUR." 175 

Lord Beaconsfield and his colleague, Lord Salisbury, came 

back from Berlin claiming that they had obtained " Peace with 

honour," and in the main this was true. But the ^ . . . 

... Criticism of 

policy of the treaty lies open to much criticism. Lord Bea- 

We were never able to i2[et the Turks to carry out co- sfield's 

policy. 
the projected reforms, which are much further 

from fulfilment in 1899 than they were in 1878. Our 
guarantee of the Turkish empire was never more than a 
farce. The island of Cyprus, held on a rather undignified 
tenure, proved barren and harbourless, and has never been of 
any use to us as a naval or military base. Crete would have 
been a far better choice. Bulgaria, so elaborately divided by 
the treaty, united itself by a revolution a few years later without 
any objection from any power. On the other hand, Russia 
had been humiliated by the revision of the St. Stephano terms, 
and owed England a grudge which could not easily be for- 
gotten. These, however, were not the criticisms made on the 
Berhn Conference by the British opposition in 1878: the 
points then raised by Mr. Gladstone and his friends were that 
we might have joined Russia in bringing pressure on Turkey 
in 1877, after the Bulgarian atrocities, and so have prevented 
any war, and that it was unrighteous to offer any guarantee for 
the further maintenance of the barbarous and blood-stained 
Ottoman power. With the massacres of 1897 before us, it is 
difficult not to sympathize with this last view. Fortunately our 
guarantee lapsed long ago. 

The Conservatives had yet two years of power after the 
Berlin Treaty was signed; they were full of unfortunate incidents, 
for some of which the cabinet was responsible, while others 
were the results of mere ill luck. In our chapter on India 
and the colonies we shall have to deal with the Afghan war 
of 1878-80, with its record of fighting that was not always 
fortunate. It was a direct result of our quarrel with Russia, 
for fear lest the Ameer should fall under Russian influence was 
the originating cause of our invasion of his realm. The Zulu 



1/6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

war of 1878-79 had no such direct connection with European 

politics ; but when the disaster of Isandula made it unpopular, 

Liberal orators did not fail to point out ll.at such misfortunes 

were the result of Imperialistic greed and the maintenance of a 

"forward policy" in the' colonies. 

But in all probability the Government suffered more in 

public estimation from its Irish difficulties than from its foreign 

policy. The parliament of .1874-80 was the first 
The Home . 1 ■ , 1 ir -r. i i • ^^ 

Rule party— ^^ which the Home Rale party and its policy 

Rise of of systematic obstruction came to the front. 

Parnell. ^_. ^ , ... 

Home Rule w^as practically a reversion to 

O'ConnelFs old demand for the repeal of the Union, the 
Fenian programme of complete separation and the establish- 
ment of an Irish republic being tacitly dropped. As long 
as the Home Rulers were' led by the quiet and respectable 
Isaac Butt, they made no great stir. But with the appearance 
of the cynical and saturnine Charles Stuart Parnell as a party 
chief, things changed. The more violent members of the Home 
Rule faction tried the policy of obstructing in Parliament all 
public business, foreign and domestic, by interminable speeches, 
irrelevant amendments, got-up altercations, and vexatious counts 
out. Their object was that of the importunate widow in the 
parable — to make themselves such a nuisance that their de- 
mands might be conceded out of mere w^eariness and disgust. 
Throughout the years 1877-80 they were incessantly wasting 
time and driving to despair the mild and kindly Sir Stafford 
Northcote, w^ho had succeeded Lord Beaconsfield as leader of 
the House of Commons. At the same time they kept up a 
vigorous agitation against *' landlordism " in the Irish country- 
side, which w'as accompanied with a running commentary of 
agrarian outrages, of which they disclaimed the responsibility. 
It cannot be denied that one result of their activity was to 
produce a general feeling in England that the Conservatives 
had proved themselves incapable of dealing with the Irish 
question. 



GLADSTONE RETURNS TO POWER. 177 

In March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield dissolved his parliament, 
which was now nearing its legal term of seven years. The 
general election was fought with more than usual 
acrimony, for the ^Liberals were stirred to great Beacons- 
energy by Gladstone's " Midlothian speeches," field's 
in which he taunted the Conservatives as the 
advocates of unjust aggression all over the world, and the 
special friends of the Turk. His eloquence had no mean 
effect on the contest, and the Liberals came to the new 
Parliament with a splendid majority of one hundred. It boded 
ill for them, however, that the Home Rulers had swept all 
Ireland save Ulster, and appeared with nearly eighty members 
when the House met in the summer of 1880. 

The second Gladstone ministry was destined to last just 
five years (June, 1880, to June, 1885). It was inaugurated with 
promises of the old Liberal panaceas, " Peace, Re- 
trenchment, and Reform," but it turned out to be gp^nd^"^^ 
a period of wars and rumours of wars, of disaster ministry— 
abroad and venomous civil strife at home. Its ^^^ ^^^ 
opening incident showed that Gladstone's external 
policy might perhaps be righteous, but was certainly neither 
dignified nor successful. The Government was hardly in 
office before it was confronted with the revolt of the Boers 
of the Transvaal, a Dutch state which Lord Beaconsfield had 
annexed in 1877, to save its population from being overwhelmed 
by its Zulu neighbours. In 1880, the Zulus having been long 
crushed, the Boers rose in rebellion, destroyed several small 
detachments, and finally inflicted a disgraceful defeat on the 
British forces at Majuba Hill. The Government had at first 
refused to treat with the insurgents, but after the first checks 
Mr. Gladstone came to the conclusion that they were patriots 
rightly struggling for independence, and, though large rein- 
forcements were just reaching Natal, granted the Boers inde- 
pendence under the vaguest terms of suzerainty (March, 188 1). 
Since then South Africa has never ceased to give trouble. 

N 



178 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Even before the Transvaal disturbances were settled, Ireland 
was in a state of uproar which had not been paralleled since 

1867. If the Home Rule members had been 
Irish discon- troublesome to the late Conservative Govern- 
'^Compensa- ^'^^^^i they continued to make themselves doubly 
lion for Dis- objectionable to the Liberals. Mr. Gladstone 
BUl^"^^ was still under the impression, which he had 

imbibed in 1868, that Irish discontent could be 
healed by remedial measures. With this object he brought 
forward in 1880 a bill prohibiting landlords from evicting any 
tenants, however bad, without paying them " compensation for 
disturbance." This measure failed to pass the House of Lords, 

but in 1 88 1 another " Land Bill " was successfully 

The Land carried through, creating a Land Court, whose 

Act of 1881 — • • J 1. i- 11 t^ 

The Land commissioners were empowered to iix ail rents 

League and against which protest was made. It acted in the 

cnme!^" most stringent way, reducing rents from thirty to 

fifty per cent., but Ireland showed no signs of 

settling down. The peasantry had been persuaded by the 

Home Rulers that if they held together and kept up a lively 

agitation, the Liberal Government might be frightened into 

abolishing landlords altogether, compensating them from the 

public funds, and making over their estates to the tenantry. 

For this end the celebrated " Land League " was started, and 

soon spread over the whole country. Its leaders did not 

openly advocate outrages, but they were always full of excuse 

and pity for those who were detected in committing them. It 

was small wonder if agrarian crime suddenly developed to an 

extent which might have seemed incredible. Many districts of 

the south and west of Ireland were under a veritable reign of 

terror. 

At last Mr. Forster, the courageous and well-meaning 

statesman to whom the secretaryship for Ireland was entrusted, 

got leave to seize and imprison on suspicion Parnell and some 

forty other chiefs of the Land League. Outrages redoubled, 



THE PHCENIX PARK MURDERS. 179 

and from his confinement in Kilmainham jail Parnell sanc- 
tioned the " No Rent Manifesto," an appeal to 

the whole tenantry of Ireland to refuse to pay a ^^Pfison- 

■ ^ ■' ment of the 
farthmg to their landlords till the Government Land League 

should be brought to its knees. It was largely ff^ p~T^^ 
acted upon in the southern and western parts of Manifesto." 
the island. Thereupon the cabinet declared the 
Land League "an illegal association," and suppressed it 
throughout the country. But the outrages only continued to 
grow worse: in the fourth quarter of 1881 they rose to the 
appalling figure of 732, of which eight were murders and thirty- 
four attempts at murder. 

Broken down by the stress of the struggle, Gladstone resolved 
to take the astonishing step of releasing Parnell and the other 

suspects, if they would promise to aid him in 

The 
quieting the country. This surrender took shape ♦•Treaty" of 

in the "Kilmainham treaty" of April, 1882, the Kilmainham 

— The 
prisoners covenantmg that the No-Rent Manifesto phcenix 

should be withdrawn, and they would " make Park 

exertions which would be effective in stopping 

outrages and intimidation of all kinds." Forster, the Irish 

secretary, and Lord Cowper, the viceroy, at once resigned, 

refusing to make bargains with sedition. To fill the former's 

place Lord Frederick Cavendish took office, but only six days 

afterwards he was assassinated in broad daylight in the Phoenix 

Park, along with his under- secretary Mr. Burke, by some 

Dublin ruffians belonging to a society which called itself " the 

Invincibles" (May 6, 1882). 

Public opinion in England was deeply stirred by this dreadful 

crime, which so entirely justified Forster's refusal to sanction a 

policy of weakness. The Gladstone Government had to take 

up once more a policy of coercion, and to acknowledge that 

" the late arrangements must be reconsidered and recast." So 

great was the feeling stirred up against the Home Rulers in 

general, that Parnell himself thought it necessary to characterize 



i8o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the murders " as cowardly and unprovoked assassinations." 
But he none the less opposed by all the weapons 
The Crimes of obstruction the new Coercion Bills brought 
Cont^inurifc7 i" ^y Sir AVilliam Harcourt, predicting that they 
of the would lead to even worse troubles than those of 

stmggle. ^^^i- ^" ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^°"S ' ^^^ " Crimes Act," 

vigorously administered by the new viceroy Lord 
Spencer, had a considerable effect in keeping down out- 
rages. The Dublin murderers were detected and hung, to the 
great content of the nation, and several dastardly attempts to 
use dynamite for explosions in England and Scotland failed 
to frighten the Government, or to produce anything more 
than a redoubled determination that sedition and crime 
must be put down. Rampant obstruction was still kept 
up by the Home Rulers in parliament, and outrages con- 
tinued to occur in Ireland; but by 1884 other questions 
had arisen to distract the attention of Great Britain from the 
sister island. 

The main question of foreign policy in the years of the war 
with the Land League was connected with Egypt. Since 
Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Canal shares we 
^rf^r^ had kept our hand upon that country, sharing 

with France a sort of unauthorized control, which 
in 1879 was made more formal. In that year the extrava- 
gant and reckless Khedive Ismail was compelled to abdicate, 
and his son Tewfik was placed in power, but compelled to 
accept an English and a French minister, who were to be 
irremovable, and to take charge of the whole financial 
arrangements of the country. The young Khedive did not 
struggle against the " Dual Control," but it roused deep dis- 
content among the native officials and ministers, who had 
previously fleeced the country at their own sweet will. An 
ambitious colonel named Arabi Pasha put himself at the head 
of a movement whose watchword was " Egypt for the 
Egyptians." Finding that the troops would follow him, he 



CONQUEST OF EGYPT. l8i 

executed a coup d'etat^ seized the person of the Khedive, and 
drove away the foreign ministers (April, 1882). 

It would have been natural for England and France to com- 
bine, in order to restore the Dual Control and put down the 
dictator. But the French Government refused 
to lend any help for such a purpose, not dream- jf^^"*^^ ''6" 
ing apparently that England would go in single- —Bombard- 
handed. Mr. Gladstone seems at first to have ?f "^ °^ . 

Alexandria. 

been in some doubt as to the policy to pursue, 
but the Mediterranean squadron was ordered to Alexandria. 
While it lay there a great riot broke out in the city, directed 
against all Europeans, and many hundreds of Greeks, Italians, 
and Levantines, with a few British subjects, were massacred 
(June II, 1882). This occurrence naturally led to hostilities : 
when Arabi refused to obey Admiral Seymour's demand that he 
should stop fortifying Alexandria, and dismantle its batteries, 
the fleet was directed to bombard the place (July 11). The 
forts were wrecked, the garrison driven out, and the English 
landed and took possession of the ruins of the place. 

Thus began the Egyptian campaign, which Gladstone 
persistently refused to call a war, maintaining that it was 
only " a series of military operations," because 
we were attacking, not the Khedive, the rightful Tel-el-^ebir 
ruler, but only his rebellious subjects. The 
struggle was short, for Sir Garnet Wolseley, to whom it was 
entrusted, managed the business with the most admirable 
decision and promptitude. The Egyptians were expecting 
him to debouch from Alexandria, but when his troops begaij to 
arrive in force from England and India, he turned aside and 
seized the Suez Canal, which he made his base for a march 
across the desert on Cairo. Arabi hurriedly raised the lines of 
Tel-el- Kebir to protect the capital; but Wolseley came upon 
them by a rapid night march, stormed them at dawn, and com- 
pletely scattered the Egyptian host (September 13). A day 
later his cavalry seized Cairo before the enemy could rally, 



i82 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and the rebellion collapsed. Arabi and his chief supporters 
were captured and exiled to Ceylon, and the Khedive was 
replaced on his throne. But an English army of occupation 
remained in Egypt, though Gladstone promised the French and 
the Sultan that they should be removed when order and good 
government were restored — a most unwise pledge. 

Circumstances, however, were too strong for the Liberal 
cabinet, or the promise would probably have been fulfilled. 

But even before Arabi's rise, a rebellion had 
M^htT— ^^ broken out in the Egyptian provinces in the 
Abandon- Soudan. A fanatic from Dongola, named 
Souda°n'^^ Mohammed Ahmed, had put himself at the 

head of the Arab tribes of the south, who were 
groaning under the bitter oppression of their Egyptian task- 
masters. He proclaimed himself to be the Mahdi^ the prophet 
whom all Mussulmans expect to appear just before the Last 
Judgment, and announced that he was the destined conqueror 
of the world. His first successes caused the whole Soudan to 
rally round him, and his "dervishes" drove the Egyptian 
troops into their fortresses. To stay his progress, General 
Hicks was sent to Khartoum with a raw native force, hastily 
raised from the wreck of Arabi's army. But as he marched 
towards Kordofan Hicks was surrounded and cut to pieces 
with the whole of his host (October 3, 1883). Gladstone then 
determined to abandon the Soudan, believing that the dervishes 
were an oppressed population struggling for a not-undeserved 
freedom, and not seeing that they were desperate fanatics bent 
on the conquest of the whole world, and set on slaying every 
one who refused to acknowledge their Mahdi. 

To withdraw the Egyptian troops from the Soudan, Charles 
Gordon, a brave and pious engineer officer, who had once 

governed the country in the days of the Khedive 

Gordon at Ismail, was sent to Khartoum. On his arrival 
Khartoum. ' 

there he found that the rebellion had gone much 

further than he had expected, and that it was impossible to 



DEATH OF GENERAL GORDON. 183 

carry out the Government's plan without further military aid. 
He was driven into Khartoum and there besieged by the 
Mahdists in February, 1884. At the head of his dispirited and 
ill-disciplined Egyptian troops he made a gallant defence, but his 
repeated demands for British bayonets were regularly refused 
till it was too late. In the autumn Gladstone at last deter- 
mined to send an expedition to the Soudan ; but by this time 
Khartoum was at its last gasp. Wolseley, the victor of Tel-el- 
Kebir, forced his way up the Nile and despatched a column 
across the desert to relieve the city. After a most perilous 
march the troops beat the dervishes at the desperate battle of 
Abu-Klea (January 22, 1885), and forced their way to within a 
hundred miles of Gordon's stronghold. But the time was past 
for succour. On January 26 the Mahdi stormed Khartoum, 
and massacred Gordon and the 11,000 men of his garrison. 
On receiving this disastrous news the expeditionary force 
retired on Egypt, abandoning the whole Soudan to the rebels, 
who slew off the greater part of the people, and turned the 
whole region into a desert. 

Two half-hearted attempts were made, one before and one 
after the fall of Khartoum, to attack the insurgents from the 
side of the Red Sea. But the expeditionary forces which 
landed at Suakim, though they beat the dervishes at El-Teb and 
Tamai (1884), and Tofrek (1885), recoiled before the difficulties 
of the waterless desert which separates the coast plain from the 
Nile, and accomplished absolutely nothing. 

The betrayal of Gordon — for so the tardy action of the 
Government was generally and not unnaturally styled — 
alienated from Gladstone many supporters whose 
faith had survived Majuba Hill and the Kilmain- gin ^nd Re- 
ham Treaty. For the last year of its tenure of distribution 
office the Liberal cabinet was profoundly un- 
popular. It had profited little from the one constructive 
measure of its later years, ^the Reform Bill of 1884. This was 
designed to level up the electoral body, by giving the franchise 



i84 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to the last considerable class who were still destitute of the 
vote — the agricultural labourers of the counties. The Conser- 
vatives refused to allow the bill to pass, stopping it in the 
House of Lords, till Gladstone consented to let redistribution 
accompany reform ; i.e. to rearrange all the constituencies so 
as to make them fairly equal in size. This idea was very 
imperfectly carried out. The democratic ideal of " one man 
one vote " was now practically attained, but not that of " one 
vote one value," for a few hundred inhabitants of a decaying 
Irish town, or a depopulated Irish county, still return the same 
number of members as enormous London constituencies, such 
as Chelsea or East Ham. Gladstone justified the anomaly by 
the theory that the further a district was from the capital the 
more did it require representation — a doctrine not likely to be 
popular with Londoners. The main result of the bill was that 
the smaller boroughs which had escaped disfranchisement in 
1832, now became absorbed in the surrounding country 
districts. The seats gained from them mostly went to new 
constituencies in the north of England. 

In June, 1885, the Government was defeated, by a chance 
combination of Conservatives and Home Rulers, on an unim- 
portant detail of the budget. Gladstone there- 
State o upon resigned, and Lord Salisbury, head of the 
1885— Glad- Conservative party since Lord Beaconsfield's 

stone's third ^^^^^ in 188 1, took office. As the Liberals were 
premiership. ' 

still in a considerable majority, this arrangement 

was evidently a mere stop-gap. At the end of the session, 

Lord Salisbury dissolved Parliament, and the first general 

election after the Reform Bill of 1884 occurred. What attitude 

the new constituencies would adopt was quite uncertain. 

Gladstone, in a series of long and vigorous speeches in his 

constituency of Midlothian, asked for a majority large enough 

to enable him to keep down both Tories and Home Rulers in 

case they should combine. But this was denied him : though 

the Liberals swept away nearly all the county seats in the east 



GENERAL ELECTION OF 1885. 1S5 

and centre of England, where the newly enfranchised labourers 
all voted for their benefactor, yet they suffered a number of 
disastrous defeats in the towns, where public opinion was 
greatly excited against their weak and unlucky foreign policy. 
When the House met, the Liberals had just such a majority 
over the Conservatives (330 to 251) as allowed the eighty-six 
Home Rulers under Parnell to keep the balance of power in 
their hands. The Irish chief had been sounding the heads of 
both parties for some time, and thought that Gladstone was 
likely to prove more squeezable than Lord Salisbury, though 
several Conservative leaders — especially Lord Carnarvon — 
seem to have given more attention to his overtures in 1885 
than was consistent with the true policy of their party. In 
January, 1886, Parnell assisted the Liberals to evict Lord 
Salisbury from office, and Gladstone for the third time became 
prime minister. Even before he took office it began to be 
noised abroad that he was in secret negotiation with the Irish, 
and ready to buy their allegiance by the grant of a measure of 
Home Rule. Here begins a new chapter of our domestic 
history ; that one of the two great parties should make a per- 
manent alliance with the Obstructionists had never been deemed 
possible before i38^ 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HOME RULE QUESTION AND IMPERIALISM. 
1886-1899. 

Since the days immediately preceding the Reform Bill of 1832, 
the United Kingdom had never been in such a state of political 
excitement as prevailed from November, 1885, to July, 1886. 
It was in the former month that rumours began to get abroad 
that the " liberal measure of local self-government," which Glad- 
stone had spoken of in his Midlothian speeches as desirable for 
Ireland, meant Home Rule. At midwinter it was stated that 
he had invited Parnell to confer with him on the scheme, and 
to suggest guarantees for the preservation of law and peace in 
Ireland when Home Rule should have been conceded. Never- 
theless, many Liberals refused to believe that there was any 
truth in the reports, and several of their party leaders announced 
that they still remained opposed to any grant of legislative 
independence to Ireland. 

But when the Tories had been evicted from office in 

January, 1886, and Gladstone came into power, his proceedings 

showed that rumour had not lied. It soon became 

Rumours as j^j^Q^yj^ ^^^t the premier was drafting a Home 

to the Home ^ . ° 

Rule Bill— Rule Bill, and that violent dissensions were on 

Liberal ^ ^ ^^ ^Y\q cabinet, since several members of it 

dissensions. ' ... 

were not prepared to follow him in his new 

departure. In March, the president of the Local Government 

Board, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, the best-known leader of the 



THE FIRST HOME RULE BILL. 187 

Radical wing of the party, resigned his office, as did Mr. George 
Trevelyan, the secretary for Scotland. But the bulk of the 
Liberal party were still in the dark as to the exact form which 
the projected bill would take, and it was quite uncertain 
whether the majority were prepared to follow the premier. All 
that was known was that there were bound to be some secessions 
when Gladstone's plan was set forth. Meanwhile the Con- 
servatives were commencing a vigorous agitation against any 
concession to Parnell, and the Irish Protestants of Ulster were 
fiercely proclaiming that they would resist, even with armed 
force, any attempt to place them in subjection to the Home 
Rule majority in the south and west. 

On the 8th of April, the bill was at last introduced and 
explained by the premier, in a speech occupying nearly four 

hours. It was proposed to establish an Irish 

T 4. • T-i 1,1- • ,-• c \ Introduction 

parliament m Dublm, consistmg of 309 members of the bill. 

sitting in a single chamber ; by a device strange to 
British ideas, these members were to be of two classes, 206 
representing the boroughs and counties, while the remainder 
were to be peers or senators of an anomalous sort, chosen for 
long periods, and not liable to lose their seats at a dissolution. 
The Imperial Government was to retain control over the army, 
matters of external trade, the customs and excise, and foreign 
policy. The rest of the affairs of Ireland were to be entrusted 
to the Dublin parliament, which would have in its power the 
police, the maintenance of law and justice, all matters of 
internal taxation, education, and all the executive and adminis- 
trative parts of the governance of the realm. By an elaborate 
financial scheme, Gladstone calculated that Ireland should pay 
;^3, 244,000 a year to the Imperial exchequer as her contribu- 
tion to the management of the British empire ; she would have, 
he thought, about ^,{^7, 000,000 more for her own local purposes. 
No Irish members were for the future to come to Westminster, 
so that the Crown was to be the only formal link between the 
two kingdoms. 



i88 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The heated debates which followed lasted from the 8th of 
April to the 7th of June. Parnell expressed his satisfaction 

with the bill, though he claimed that financially 
Liberal i^ was a hard bargain for Ireland. It remained 

Party— The to be seen whether the defection from the Liberal 

ranks would be large enough to compensate for 
the eighty-six well-disciplined followers whom he was about to 
lead into the ministerial lobby. Gradually, however, it began 
to be clear that the split in the Liberal ranks was much deeper 
than Gladstone had hoped. Lord Hartington and most of the 
Whig section of the party were known to be alienated, and it 
was also found that Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Bright were 
about to be followed into opposition by a considerable 
number of the Radicals. Member after member arose on the 
Liberal side of the House to complain that the guarantees 
given for the loyalty of Ireland were too weak ; or that no pro- 
tection was aiforded for the minority in Ulster who disliked 
Home Rule ; or that the proposed financial arrangements were 
unworkable; or that the removal of the Irish members from 
Westminster broke up all connection between the kingdoms ; 
or, more simply, that persons with the antecedents of Parnell and 
his followers could not be trusted with power. When the 
crucial division on the second reading of the bill was taken on 
June 19, no less than ninety-three Liberals voted against the 
Government, and the measure was thrown out by a majority of 
thirty (341 to 311). Mr. Gladstone at once dissolved parlia- 
ment, though it was not seven months old, and appealed to the 
country to endorse his new policy (June 25). 

The general election of July, 1886, was by far the most 

bitterly fought contest of the present half-century, 
a d***^!*^/ Disruption of old party ties amongst the Liberals 
stonians" — lent it a particularly personal animosity, since 
dection"^'^*^ every " Unionist " of the last parliament found 

his seat attacked by a " Gladstonian." The latter 
charged their former friends with disloyalty and desertion; 



HOME RULE DEFEATED, 189 

the former replied by taunting the majority with bUnd sub- 
servience to Gladstone, and with making terms with the friends 
of traitors and assassins. The stake at hazard was by far the 
greatest of the century ; the Unionists believed that their defeat 
would mean civil war in six months, and the possible disrup- 
tion of the empire. Gladstone, on the other hand, held out 
the prospect of a pacified and friendly Ireland — a thing of 
which no man had ever ventured to dream — and warned his 
opponents that even if they won they had nothing to offer but 
a policy of interminable and hopeless coercion for the sister 
island. Passions on both sides ran higher than at any other 
crisis that men could remember, yet it was satisfactory to find 
that the election itself was carried out without any of the riot- 
ing or the corruption that used to be so common in the days 
before the Ballot Act. 

The result was decisive; the majority of the Liberal 
Unionists kept their seats — seventy-eight of them appeared 
in the new parliament. On the other hand, the 

Gladstonians had lost some forty or fifty seats, Defeat of the 

, rr., ^ Home Rulers 

and retamed no more than 191. ihe Conser- _xhe 

vatives were 316 strong, and the Parnellites 85. Liberal- 
When Lord Hartington, as head of the Liberal party. 
Unionists, explained that he and his friends 
would not amalgamate with the Conservatives, nor take office, 
but would never join in any combination with the Gladstonians 
so as to imperil the position of the incoming ministry, it 
became clear that a long spell of exile from office awaited the 
friends of Home Rule. For most intents and purposes the 
Conservatives might count on a majority of a hundred. 

When Lord Salisbury took office for the second time, in 
August, 1886, with such a powerful alliance at his back, 
domestic politics began to quiet down with a surprising quick- 
ness. The tendency was most marked in Ireland, where many 
expected that the rejection of the Home Rule Bill would be 
followed by riots and outrages worse than those of 1882-83. 



19© ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The reverse was the case ; a distinct amelioration was visible 
after the fall of the Gladstone ministry, and a 
CamoaSi— P^o^o^iged attempt made by some of the Parnel- 
Mr. Arthur lite leaders to raise agrarian trouble by a scheme 
fe^ret''/ry"^^ called " the Plan of the Campaign " was a failure. 
Their idea was to repeat in a minor form the 
"No Rent" edict of 1882, binding the tenantry in certain 
estates to cling together and refuse to pay more rent than 
they thought fit. But Mr. Arthur Balfour, the new secre- 
tary for Ireland, proved by far the most successful adminis- 
trator that had been seen across St. George's Channel for a 
generation. Indeed, he was the only statesman of modern 
days who has gained rather than lost credit while holding 
the unenviable post which was now allotted to him. The 
wild abuse of the Parnellite members in the Commons did 
not seem to worry him, and he showed an imperturbable 
indifference to all their accusations and raillery. The Govern- 
ment aided him by passing a Coercion Bill of a very stringent 
kind (July, 1887), which, on the whole, served the end for 
which it was designed, since, in spite of certain riots ending in 
bloodshed — such as the " Mitchelstown massacre " of October 
12 — Ireland was growing less disturbed all through 1887-88. 
The systematic obstruction which the Parnellites, aided by 
many Gladstonians, offered to this bill, only led to the passing 
of new and much-needed reforms of procedure in the House of 
Commons, which made the useless wasting of time more 
difficult. An Irish Land Bill which accompanied the Coercion 
Act was less successful, pleasing neither tenants nor landlords, 
and soon being forgotten. 

The year 1887 is best remembered, however, for no matter of 

party politics, but for the Queen's First Jubilee 
The Queen's ._ > ^ u u 4. 

Jubilee— The (J^"^ 21), a great ceremony held to commemo- 

Imperial rate her Majesty's completion of the fiftieth 

year of her reign. A solemn service held at 

Westminster Abbey was attended by all the Royal family, and 



THE JUBILEE OF 1887. I91 

witnessed by an assembly gathered not only from the United 
Kingdom, but from India and all the colonies. Lord Beacons- 
field's " Imperialism " still dominated his party, and everything 
was done to make the Jubilee a manifestation of the loyalty of 
the whole empire. In this aspect it was most successful ; not 
only did the premiers of the autonomous colonies and a party 
of Indian rajahs join in the ceremony in London, but rejoic- 
ings and demonstrations all round the world bore witness to 
the respect and love entertained for our aged sovereign in 
every corner of her dominions. Both at home and abroad the 
political effects of the Jubilee were admirable. They may be 
taken to mark the complete predominance of the Imperial idea 
first brought into prominence by Disraeli half a generation 
before. 

It was in truth the interests of Greater Britain — a name just 
beginning to come into vogue — rather than purely foreign 
affairs, which formed the most important parts of 
our external politics from this time onward, g .^^*®'' , 
Whether under Liberal or Conservative ministers, the Conti- 
England has steadfastly refused to entangle her- po gj.- 
self in alliances with any of the Continental powers. 

In the seventies, while Bismarck was the dominant statesman 
in Europe, Germany, Austria, and Russia formed an alliance, 
the " League of the Three Emperors," which was 
the governing factor in European politics. It France of 
might have seemed natural for us to look for 9^^ position 
friends in France and Italy, and for some time ' 

we were on excellent terms with both these powers. But 
things changed after the Egyptian war of 1882 ; our occu- 
pation of Egypt was a bitter blow to France, all the more so 
because it was entirely her own fault that she did not become 
our partner. Having refused to aid us in crushing Arabi, she 
was never again able to get her foot into the Nile valley, and 
has always cherished a rather unreasonable grudge against the 
power which finished the business without her. The facts that 



192 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

we have never formally proclaimed a protectorate over Egypt, 
and that Mr. Gladstone made his unfortunate engagement to 
evacuate the country "when circumstances permitted," have 
furnished a dozen French foreign ministers with opportunities 
for harassing English cabinets with inquiries as to the date of 
our departure, and the reasons for our delay. All reforms 
which we made in Egypt, even the most simple and necessary, 
formed the subject of angry diplomatic notes. The anomalous 
position occupied by a state which exercises the reality of 
suzerainty without its legal form, rendered such criticism only 
too easy. 

As long as France stood alone in Europe, and the League of 
the Three Emperors still existed, her intrigues against us in 

Egypt were tiresome rather than dangerous. 
The Triple Circumstances, however, gradually changed ; the 
Friendship Czar Alexander II. had been assassinated by 
between the NihiUsts in 1881, and his son Alexander III. 

France. ^^^ ^^^^ ^ friend of Germany. Moreover, the old 

Emperor William I., who always preserved a 
kindly feeling for Russia, died in 1888, and with his decease 
the influence of Bismarck, all-powerful in Germany since 
1866, and in Europe since 1870, began to wane. Even 
before his old master's death, the breach between the two 
empires had been clearly marked, and Bismarck had publicly 
announced that a continuance in his former policy was no 
longer possible. There followed a rearrangement of the 
relations of the great Continental powers, Germany and 
Austria avowing that they had concluded formal treaties with 
Italy, and taken her into partnership in a new " 7'riple 
Alliance." Russia and France, thus left in isolation, were 
forced by the logic of circumstances to look toward each other 
for support. Their drawing together only began to be evident 
about 1891-92 ; down to that date the Russian Government had 
doubted too much the solidity of the French republic, whose 
ministries were always changing, and whose very existence 



THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 193 

had seemed imperilled in 1887-88 by the intrigues of the 
theatrical adventurer General Boulanger. 

The position on the Continent was still further modified by 
the dismissal of Prince Bismarck from office by his active and 
imperious sovereign, the young emperor William 
IL, who refused to be dominated by the great of Germany 
statesman as his grandfather had been (March, —Dismissal 
1890). From that tim.e onward the German 
monarch himself has taken the place as the mainspring of 
Continental politics which the great chancellor so long 
occupied. It was for some time feared that his ambition and 
energy would lead him into stirring up trouble all over Europe, 
but he has disappointed his enemies. Though his policy can- 
not always be praised, and his unending flow of speeches and 
telegrams is not always guided by discretion, he has practically 
displayed an ability and moderation for which he at first 
received no credit. 

The attitude of the English cabinet, in face of the new 
alliances on the Continent, was bound to be reserved. Con- 
sidering how we were embroiled with France in 
Egypt, and how suspicious we have always been policy of the 
of Russia in the East, it might seem obvious for British 
England to draw near to the Triple Alliance, to 
whom our fleet would be invaluable in time of war. But any 
formal treaty with the three powers might possibly involve us 
in struggles in which we have no interest, and causes 
of friction with Germany were continually arising over 
colonial matters, owing to the perpetual annexation in remote 
corners of the earth to which both Bismarck and William II. 
were prone. Hence the foreign policy of the Salisbury ministry 
in 1886-92 (like that of their successors ever since) consisted 
in careful balancing and neutrality, with the final object of not 
offending both groups of Continental powers at once. If we 
were led into such a misfortune, it might end in their sinking 
their grudges and making common cause in order to plunder 

o 



194 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the British Empire — a possible though not a probable con- 
tingency. 

Meanwhile the internal policy of the Conservative ministry 

was conducted on much the same lines as that of the 

Beaconsfield ministry of 1874-80 — the party had 

Domestic learnt its lesson, and strove to combine practical 
reforms of .... . 

Lord reforms and administrative efficiency at home with 

Salisbury s ^^^q safeguarding of the empire abroad. The 
ministry. 00 1 

first Chancellor of the Exchequer whom Lord 

Salisbury appointed, Lord Randolph Churchill, tried to raise 

a cry for economy, and actually resigned his office because 

he thought that the army and navy estimates were too high. 

But his declaration found no echo among the Conservative 

rank and file, and he discovered that he had committed political 

suicide by his hasty action. All through the years 1886-92 

the cabinet continued to produce bills for domestic reforms 

of the practical kind, such as the Local Government Bill of 

1888, creating the elective county councils which have worked 

so well ever since their creation ; and the Free Education Act 

of 1 89 1, which made the education in elementary schools 

gratuitous, by stopping the demand for the " school pence " 

which parents had hitherto been obliged to pay. 
of the -^^^ ^^^ most successful measure carried during 

National the whole tenure of office by Lord Salisbury was 

undoubtedly the conversion of the National Debt 
in 1888. Mr. Goschen, a Liberal Unionist who succeeded 
Lord Randolph Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
devised a plan for offering all the holders of the " Three per 
Cents. " the choice of being paid off at the full nominal value 
of their bonds, or of retaining them and receiving 2| per cent, 
interest instead of the former 3 down to 1903, and 2^ 
per cent, after that date. Very few of the fundholders asked 
for their money back, and since 1889 the country has saved 
^1,400,000 a year by the transaction. So far is the value 
of the securities from being low^ered by the diminished interest, 



THE PARNELL COMMISSION. I95 

that the 2f per cent.'s are nov/ worth far more than the old 

"Consols," and generally stand at ^iio and over for the 

nominal ^100 stock. 

The Irish question, in spite of the increasing quiet across 

St. George's Channel, was never long forgotten ; and the two 

chief incidents by which it was kept before the 

public eye were very curious. The Times news- ? f;i&0" 

paper, publishing a series of articles on " Parnellism and the 

and Crime," ended them by printina: a letter ^^"""^^ . 

' . . Commission, 

purporting to have been written by Parnell himself 

in extenuation of the Phoenix Park murders. He was made 

to say that policy compelled him to denounce them, but that 

" Burke got no more than his deserts." Parnell denied the 

authenticity of the letter, and in August, 1888, began an action 

for libel against the Times ^ putting his damages at ^100,000. 

The Government resolved to appoint a special commission 

to inquire into all the charges brought by the Tiines against 

Parnell and his followers. The three judges who sat to try 

the matter (September, 1888 — January, 1889), found that "the 

respondents did nothing to prevent crime, and expressed 

no bo7iaJide disapproval of it ; that they disseminated newspapers 

tending to incite to sedition and the commission of crimes; 

and that they entered into a conspiracy to promote, by a 

system of coercion and intimidation, an agrarian agitation for 

the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country 

the Irish landlords." But they also found that the supposed 

letter of Parnell on the Phoenix Park outrage was a forgery, 

and acquitted him of the charge of insincerity in denouncing 

it. The document had been concocted and sold to the Ti??ies 

by Richard Pigott, the disreputable editor of a Home-Rule 

newspaper in Dublin, who finally confessed to the forgery, 

fled to Spain, and there committed suicide to escape arrest. 

For having been deceived by this villain, the Times had to pay 

;^5ooo to Parnell. 

The Gladstonian party elected to consider the verdict of 



196 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the special commission as amounting to a complete rehabili- 
tation of Parnell, his followers, and his methods. 
The O'Shea 
divorce suit ^^ ^^^ return to the House of Commons he 

received an ovation from them, and was loaded 
with compliments and testimonies of confidence. But it was 
only for a year more that they were to have the benefit of his 
company and co-operation. In 1890, to the surprise of the 
whole political world, he appeared in the unenviable position 
of co-respondent in the Divorce Court. The petitioner was 
his friend and lieutenant Captain O'Shea. Hardly any attempt 
was made by Parnell to defend the case, which presented 

many discreditable incidents. The verdict was 
deoos? ^ ^ accordingly given against him, but it seemed 
Parnell from at first that it would not make much difference 
shlo^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^ position, as his followers showed their 

usual wonderful discipline, and re-elected him 
their chief. But they had reckoned without Mr. Gladstone 
and the " Nonconformist conscience." Public opinion in 
England has got beyond the stage in which a notorious 
evil-liver can be accepted as leader of a great party, and the 
bulk of the Liberal masses, among whom the dissenting 
element was specially strong, were profoundly grieved and 
disgusted at the exposure. Gladstone, expressing their views, 
issued a manifesto to the effect that "the continuance of 
Mr. Parnell in his leadership would be productive of disastrous 
consequences." The threat that English support would be 
entirely withdrawn from Home Rule so disturbed the Irish 
party, that a majority of them came to the conclusion that their 
chief must be dethroned. There was a bitter struggle among 
them, for some feared their autocrat, and others could not for- 
get his past services. But the Catholic priesthood threw its 
powerful influence into the scale of morality, and a majority of 
the Irish members declared Parnell deposed, and elected in his 
place Mr. Justin McCarthy, an amiable literary man whose con- 
trol over them was not likely to resemble the iron rule of Parnell. 



DISRUPTION OF THE IRISH PARTY. 197 

The ex-leader, however, refused to take the verdict of the 

majority, and, with those of his followers who adhered to him, 

formed a new party, which appealed to the 

people of Ireland against " Enerlish dictation," Parnellites 

. ° ° ' and Anti- 

as exercised by Mr. Gladstone. Parnellite and Parnellites— 

Anti-Parnellite candidates contested every vacant 5^^^^P^ 

^ Parnell. 

Irish seat, and Parnell himself scoured every 

county in the kingdom, denouncing the traitors and weaklings 
who had betrayed him. The discovery that his adherents 
were in a minority only spurred him on to fresh exertions, 
which his health could not stand. After some open-air 
meetings held in inclement autumn weather, he caught in- 
flammation of the lungs, and died in a few days (October 6, 
189 1). Contrary to expectation, his party survived his death; 
the bitterness between the two sections of Irish members was 
too great to allow them to amalgamate, and the Parnellite and 
Anti-Parnellite factions are still with us. 

Nine months after the death of Parnell, Lord Salisbury 
dissolved Parliament, which had now reached its sixth year of 
life. The general election of July, 1892, resembled 
all its predecessors for the last quarter of the g ,• P ? 
century, in that the outgoing ministry lost by it. ministry- 
It seems that there is always a considerable body ^^^h® °* 
of electors who are discontented with any existing 
Government, and vote for the opposition, whatever may be 
the politics of the " Ins " and the " Outs." This " swing of the 
pendulum" was clearly visible in 1892. Though it could not 
be alleged that Lord Salisbury's cabinet had been conspicuously 
inefficient or unsuccessful in administering the empire, yet 
numerous constituencies with an old Liberal record, which 
had gone Unionist at the time of the first Home Rule Bill, now 
reverted to their former politics. In the new Parliament there 
appeared 269 Conservatives and 46 Liberal Unionists, against 
274 Gladstonians and 81 Irish Home Rulers. The Parnellite 
faction seemed almost wiped out, and kept only nine seats. It 



igS ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was notable that England had a clear majority against Home 
Rule (273 to 197), while the Gladstonian majority of 40 
in the whole United Kingdom consisted entirely of Irish 
members. 

Gladstone, therefore, when he took office in August, 1892, 
was to a great extent in the hands of his allies from across St. 
George's Channel. He was compelled to make 
Gladstone's Home Rule the main plank of his platform, though 
oremiershio na^i^y of his British followers had their minds set 
—The on other topics, such as the disestablishment of 

T *Vk 1 

programme ^^^ Churches of Scotland and Wales, the abolition 
of the House of Lords, temperance legislation in 
the direction of " Local Option," anti-vaccination, universal 
suffrage, the payment of members of Parliament, and number- 
less other local or sectional ideals. A political opponent 
cruelly styled them " a fortuitous concourse of enthusiasts or 
faddists, grouped under a banner for which they felt a very 
secondary interest." But whatever were the thoughts of some 
of his followers, Mr. Gladstone himself was earnestly set on 
carrying his Home Rule Bill ; to guide it through Parliament, 
he trusted, would be the last great work of his life. He was 
now eighty-three years of age, and personal infirmities were at 
last beginning to tell on his strong physique ; if Ireland was 
once satisfied, he hoped to sing his Nwic Dimiitis^ and retire 
from the wearing duties of public life. 

All through the autumn of 1892 the details of the forth- 
coming bill were carefully kept dark, but in February, 1893, it 

^, , was launched on the waters of debate by the aared 

The second , . 

Home Rule premier. The measure differed considerably from 
^^"^' the project of 1886. It proposed to constitute 

an Irish parliament of two houses, not of one. The upper 
fiouse was to consist of 48 members, chosen only by "persons 
with a rateable holding of ^^20 or more. The lower house was 
to contain 103 members, representing the existing parliamentary 
constituencies of Ireland. Another crucial difference from the 



THE SECOND HOME RULE BILL. 199 

bill of 1886 was that Irish members to the mmiber of 80 were 
to be left at Westminster and to vote on all Imperial matters, 
though not on purely English or Scottish concerns. A third 
was that Ireland was to pay, not a lump sum of ;!^3,2oo,ooo, 
but a percentage or quota of between four and five per cent, of 
the whole revenues of the three kingdoms. But the main 
points of the first Home Rule Bill were kept : Ireland was to 
manage her own internal administration, police, laws, taxation, 
and education. 

The bill was debated at enormous length ; it took the whole 
time between February and September to carry it through the 
Commons, and this was only accomplished by 
stifling debate on many of its clauses by means of The bill 
the " closure." But there was a certain unreality Commoi^ 
in the discussion, owing to the fact that every one and rejected 
knew that the real tug of war would come only l^i-js 
when the bill had passed the Lower House and 
gone up to the Lords. The third reading passed (September i, 
1893) by 301 to 267. The Lords then took it in hand, and made 
short work of it ; on September 8 it was rejected by a majority 
of about ten to one (419 to 41). 

Two courses were now open to Gladstone. He might dissolve 
Parliament at once and ask for the country's verdict on the 
conduct of the Upper House. If a triumphant 
majority were again given in his favour, the Lords Jr^^^J-^'-^" . 
would probably bow before the storm and let the tion of the 
bill pass, as they had done with the Reform Bill ^jn'J^tr^"^^ 
of 1832. On the other hand, it was open to him 
to reject the idea of a dissolution, and to proceed to carry other 
Liberal measures such as his party might desire, undertaking to 
recur to Home Rule at the first favourable opportunity. From 
taking the first course he was probably deterred by the fact that 
no outburst of popular feeling followed the rejection of the bill; 
the news was received everywhere with apathy. There was 
every reason to fear that a general election might only lead to 



200 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" the back swing of the pendulum," and a reversion towards 

Unionism. 

Accordingly Gladstone retained office, and announced that 

after a very short recess he should summon Parliament to meet 

^, , ^ ao:ain in November for active legislative work. 

Gladstone ^ , • 7 t • i 

remains in But great difficulties met him : the Irish were 

office. discontented ; the English Radicals were split up 

into cliques and coteries which pulled different ways ; the party 
discipline was evidently deteriorating. All that was done in 
the way of important legislation was the passage of a Parish 
Councils Bill, which gave parishes the same power of electing 
boards to settle their local affairs which the last Conservative 
Government had given to the counties. 

In March, 1894, the premier announced that he was com- 
pelled to lay down his office ; the stress of work was too much 
for one whose eyesight and hearing were both 

Retirement beginning to fail. His last speech as prime 
of Gladstone ° ° ■ ^ r ■,- ■i' 1 

—Lord minister had consisted of a diatribe upon the per- 

Rosebery versitv of the House of Lords in setting itself against 

premier. •' , , 1 1 • i 

the House of Commons ; and he more than hinted 

that, if they continued to act as they had done on the Home 

Rule question, the nation must take in hand their reform or 

extinction. It was, therefore, curious that a member of the 

recalcitrant house should be chosen to fill Gladstone's vacant 

place. His successor was Lord Rosebery, his Foreign Secretary, 

an able man in early middle age, w^ho had won considerable 

applause by his administration of our external affairs, but who 

could not be called a typical Radical or an enthusiastic Home 

Ruler. In many ways he was more like the Whig statesmen 

of the eighteenth century than the Liberal politicians of to-day, 

combining considerable literary talents and a wide knowledge 

of foreign affairs with a keen passion for the turf. He is the 

only British premier who has ever run winners of the 

Derby (1894 and 1895). 

On Mr. Gladstone's retirement, it became at once evident 



LORD ROSEBERyS MINISTRY. 2oa 

that his party depended more for its coherence and strength on 

his personal ascendency and unrivalled know- 

Differences 
ledge of parliamentary tactics than any one had of opinion 

supposed. When the veteran chief was removed, i" the Liberal 
and his eloquence and enthusiasm were no longer 
constraining his followers to obedience, they soon began to 
fall asunder. One of Lord Rosebery's first public utterances 
was a declaration that so long as England, " the predominant 
partner " in the United Kingdom, was clearly opposed to Home 
Rule, that question must be relegated to the future. He ex- 
pressed a conviction that England might be converted, but the 
time of her conversion was not yet come. Such an announce- 
ment from a minister whose majority consisted entirely of Irish 
Home Rulers, was not likely to help him in keeping the party 
together. It was obnoxious alike to Parnellites and Anti- 
Parnellites. On the other hand, many English Gladstonians 
disliked Lord Rosebery's foreign policy, which was practically 
a continuation of that of the late Conservative cabinet, and 
was decidedly Imperialistic in its tendencies. He was the first 
Liberal minister since Lord Palmerston who took a strong 
line with our neighbours, and refused to be bullied. Radicals, 
too, complained that the party of progress found an inappro- 
priate head in a member of an efiete and reactionary House 
of Lords. Some styled him an opportunist, and denied that 
he could be called Liberal at all. 

With half his party discontented and the other half apathetic, 
it was not likely that Lord Rosebery would make much of a 
record in legislation. His ministry only lasted ^^^ ^^ Lord 
sixteen months (March, 1894-June, 1895). The Rosebery's 
cabinet introduced a good many bills ; the most "^^"^^ ^y* 
important were a Welsh Disestablishment Act, an Irish Land 
Act, and a Local Option Bill to please the temperance party. 
But it did not succeed in passing any one of them, the votaries 
of each measure hindering the progress of the others, because 
their own was not given priority. It was felt, moreover, that 



202 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

all the debates were somewhat hollow, for when such measures 
were sent up to the House of Lords, they would certainly ba 
rejected ; yet the Government did not seem anxious to appeal 
to the country against the attitude of the Peers. Such an un- 
satisfactory state of affairs was bound to come to an end, and 
in June, 1895, Lord Rosebery took the opportunity of a chance 
division on a small military matter, which had gone against the 
ministry, to dissolve Parliament. 

The gloomy forebodings of the ministerialists were more 

than fulfilled by the general election of July, 1895. It resulted 

in a complete defeat of the Gladstonians ; they 

Lord Sails- reappeared in the new house with only 177 
bury s second ^ ^ ^ . 

Ministry— A supporters instead of 260, while the Conservatives 

Unionist numbered 340, and the Liberal Unionists 71. 

Even if the 70 Anti-Parnellite and 12 Parnellite 

Irish members were credited to the Radical party, they were 

still in a minority of more than 150. Lord Salisbury, therefore, 

resumed office with the largest majority at his back that has 

ever been enjoyed by an English premier during the past two 

generations. He strengthened his position by recruiting his 

ministry, not only from among Conservative leaders, but from 

the ranks of the Liberal Unionists. The latter no longer 

refused, as they had in 1886, to amalgamate with their allies; 

in addition to Mr. Goschen, who had been taken into the last 

Conservative ministry, both Lord Hartington and Mr. 

Chamberlain, representing respectively the Whig and the 

Radical wings of their party, received cabinet office^ the one 

as President of the Council, the other as Secretary for the 

Colonies. Several minor posts went to their followers. Thus 

the present administration must be styled Unionist rather than 

Conservative. 

It has now held office for nearly four years, and appears 

likely to see the century out. The main part of the annals of 

1895-99 consists of a series of foreign complications, for none 

of which the Government can be held really responsible ; they 



THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES. 203 

have several times assumed a most threatening aspect, and it 

is only in the last few months that the clouds 

have beofun to clear away. Most of the troubles j ^T^^?/? . 
° / .... difficulties of 

arose from the inevitable responsibilities of the Govern- 

empire ; there is no quarter of the arlobe in which "^^"t~ 
^ ' 1 » Armenian 

there may not appear at any moment serious massacres, 
problems for a British minister. When Lord 
Salisbury assumed office the chief areas of disturbance were in 
the Levant. The timid but fanatical Sultan Abdul-Hamid, en- 
raged at a weak and futile Armenian rising in Asia, permitted, 
or more probably ordered, a series of horrible massacres of 
Armenians in districts far remote from any focus of insurrection. 
These atrocities, extending over the two years 1895-97, exceed 
in horror anything that happened in Bulgaria in 1877, but have 
passed unpunished. The Russian Government considered that 
it was not to its interest to interfere, as it had no wish to 
encourage the Armenian nationality. The German emperor, 
who is set on establishing a strong political and trade interest 
at Constantinople, was equally determined to keep matters 
quiet. England was the only power which really wished to 
take any steps towards bringing pressure on the Sultan, and 
failed to effect anything when it was obvious that she stood 
alone — France, Italy, and the United States confining them- 
selves to platonic expressions of disgust at the atrocities. An 
attempt was made by some of the Radical party to throw odium 
on Lord Salisbury for his inability to chastise Turkey, but it 
was discouraged by their more responsible chiefs, who saw 
that the ministry could not act against the will of Russia and 
Germany without incurring grave risk of war. 

The Armenian question was in full development when two 

other crises arose. The first was a dangerous 

The Vene- 
quarrel with the United States. There was a dis- zuelan 



pute on foot in South America, as to the exact Boundary- 
boundaries of the British colony of Guiana and 
the Republic of Venezuela ; the territory in question was 



204 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

mainly pathless jungle, but it was believed to contain valuable 

gold-mines. On the pretext that any acquisition of territory in 

America by a European power was contrary to the " Monroe 

doctrine," the theory which states that " America is for the 

Americans," President Cleveland sent a message to his 

Congress, laying down with unnecessary peremptoriness a 

claim to interfere in the matter. An outburst of anti-British 

feeling in the United States followed, and in the winter of 

1895-96 affairs looked very threatening. Fortunately, the 

English Government kept cool, and American feeling soon 

calmed down, so that later in the year an amicable arbitration 

on the disputed boundary was arranged. It is pleasant in 

1899 to see how entirely the relations between Great Britain 

and the United States have changed, and to recognize that 

the wise and conciliatory attitude of our cabinet has had 

its reward. 

The Venezuelan question was at its height when trouble 

broke out in South Africa, caused by Dr. Jameson's mad 

and piratical raid into the Transvaal Republic 

The German (j^ecember 29 — January i, 1896), of which we 

and Dr. shall have to speak at greater length when dealing 

Jamesons ^-^^^i the colonies. The rasfe with which the 
raid. ^ . 

German emperors most gratuitous telegram to 

President Kriiger about Jameson's surrender was received in 
England, contrasted strangely with the quiet way in which 
Mr. Cleveland's equally unwise utterances had been taken a 
few weeks earlier. Noting the trend of English public opinion, 
and finding himself unlikely to be supported by other powers, 
William II. successfully explained away his telegram, and the 
war scare passed over. 

As if the Armenian, Venezuelan, and Transvaal difficulties 
were not enough for one year, we were on very bad terms 
with France m 1896 over the interminable Egyptian question. 
The re-conquest of the Soudan from the Khalifa, the suc- 
cessor of the late Mahdi, having been determined upon, the 



FRICTION WITH FRANCE. 205 

French Government intrigued to frustrate it, by preventing the 

Egyptian Government from finding money. They 

were so far successful that Great Britain. had to disputes 

with France 
advance ;j^5 00,000 herself, to provide for the in Egypt, 

projected expedition. In West Africa, too, there T^a%^^^^^^' 
was continually friction with French expedi- 
tions, which were pouring into the Niger valley, and cutting 
off our old-established colonies from their trading communica- 
tions with the interior. The same was the case in the far 
East, where the French Government had been encroachinsr 
on Siam, and was trying to absorb the whole country ; but 
finally it came to a compromise with Great Britain, by which 
both powers agreed to leave alone what remained of that 
kingdom. 

The year 1897 opened not quite so unprosperously as 1896, 
but there was still trouble in the air. The Armenian question 
was not exhausted when an insurrection broke out 
in Crete, to which the Greek Government lent between 

open support. Miscalculating the strength of the Turkey and 

Greece. 
Turkish empire, or hoping that a vigorous stroke 

might set all Eastern Europe in a flame, the Greeks finally 

declared war on the Sultan, and tried to invade Macedonia. 

But the powers refused to move ; it was generally thought that 

Greece had no right to open the Eastern question in such a 

violent manner, and she received no aid. Her raw army was 

overwhelmed by the numbers of the Turks, and fled in panic 

(April, 1897), so that the king had to sue for peace in the most 

humiliating fashion. The powers insisted that the terms should 

not be too hard, for no one wished to encourage the Sultan, 

and Greece was let off with the cession of a few mountain 

passes and a fine of four million Turkish pounds. 

This Eastern crisis having passed over without any further 

developments, the inhabitants of the United Kingdom and of 

the whole British Empire were able to celebrate, undisturbed 

by any grave trouble from without, the Queen's " Diamond 



2o6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Jubilee" on the 20th of June, 1897. Having completed the 
The Queen's sixtieth year of her reign, our aged sovereign has 
Diamond now worn the English crown for a longer period 
ju lee. ^-^g^^ any of her ancestors — her grandfather, 

George III., who died in the fifty-ninth year after his accession, 
is the only British monarch who approaches her length of rule. 
As the years roll on, her subjects have realized more and more 
their obligations to one who has been the model of constitu- 
tional sovereigns, and has set so high the standard of public as 
well as of domestic duty. The pageant of her state visit to St. 
Paul's was notable, even more than that of 1887, as show- 
ing the unanimity and loyalty of her vast colonies and posses- 
sions; representatives from every spot where the British flag 
waves being given their place in the procession. Two whole 
generations of her subjects have now grown up to manhood 
since Victoria's accession, and it is almost impossible for them 
to realize England without her. Comparing 1837 with 1899, 
we see what great things have been done in her name, 
and trust that our descendants may look upon the " Vic- 
torian age" as not the least glorious period in our country's 
annals. 

Many may have hoped, after the Jubilee, that the short 

remainder of the century might pass by without our being 

troubled with any more wars or rumours of wars. 

f W "t "^"^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^9^ ^^^ destined to see us nearer 

African to an open breach with a first-rate European power 

dispute with ^|_^ ^g have been since the end of the strusrde 
France. ^'^ 

in the Crimea. We have already had occasion 

to allude more than once to the restless activity of France in 

thrusting her way into the neighbourhood of our possessions, 

both in Africa and in the East. Early in 1898 grave trouble 

was caused by her enormous annexations in the valley of the 

Niger and the Congo, where for the last fifteen years she has 

been building up an empire which exists more on paper than 

in reality, a dozen forts and a few movable columns of black 



BATTLE OF OMDURMAN. ao? 

troops being supposed to Gallicize a region half the size of 
Europe, most of whose inhabitants have never seen a French- 
man. After pushing in behind our colonies of the Gambia and 
the Gold Coast, and cutting them off from inland expansion, the 
French, in 1896-97, made an attempt to seize the Lower Niger, 
in spite of a treaty dating back to 1890 which defined our 
interests in that quarter. It was only after considerable 
friction that an agreement was made in June, 1898, by which 
the tricolour was hauled down from some of their most 
advanced stations, pushed well within the British sphere of 
influence : much was given up to them that might have been 
rightfully withheld. But this dispute was a mere nothing to 
that which occupied the later months of the year. 

The Soudan expedition, which had started in 1896 to destroy 
the power of the Khalifa and reconquer the valley of the 

Middle Nile, had met with uniform success from 

r TT 1 1 , 1 -1 r- r^- ^hc Soudaii 

Its first start. Under the able guidance of Sir expedition- 
Herbert Kitchener, the commander of the Egyp- Battle of 
tian army, it had cleared the dervishes out of the 
province of Dongola in 1896, after the battle of Ferket. In 
the next year the invaders had pushed on to the line of Abu- 
Hamed and Berber, driving the enemy before them. In 1898 
the Khalifa was to be attacked in the heart of his empire : a 
considerable body of British troops was sent up to join the 
Egyptians, and in April the advanced guard of the Arab host 
was destroyed at the battle of the Atbara. In August 
Kitchener marched on Omdurman, the enemy's capital, and 
was met outside its walls by the Khalifa at the head of the full 
force of his barbarous realm, at least 50,000 fighting men. In 
one long day's fighting these fanatical hordes were scattered 
and half exterminated; it is calculated that 11,000 were slain 
and 16,000 wounded before their fierce charge was turned back 
(September i). Omdurman and Khartoum were occupied, and 
the Khalifa fled into the desert. 

A few days later an unpleasant surprise was reserved for 



2o8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Kitchener and the British Government. An insignificant French 
force, under Major Marchand, about one hundred 
dispute.^ ° ^ "^^" ^^'^^^ ^^^ officers, had pushed across Central 
Africa from the Congo, and seized Fashoda, a 
point on the Nile far above Khartoum. By means of this 
futile occupation the French Government had apparently hoped 
to establish a claim to a portion of the Nile valley. Long ago, 
in Lord Rosebery's time, they had been warned that any such 
proceedings would be treated as an " unfriendly act," but they 
had nevertheless gone on. Lord Salisbury now informed the 
French foreign minister that Major Marchand must be with- 
drawn, and that the gravest consequences would follow if he 
were not. We were, in fact, on the brink of a war with France, 
for her intolerable " policy of pin-pricks," pursued for the last 
ten years, had rendered any further yielding impossible. Fortu- 
nately, the French Government faltered and made submission : 
it was not ready to fight when its internal politics were confused 
by the wretched Dreyfus case, and when its ally, the Czar, 
refused any prospect of help. Marchand was withdrawn, and 
a treaty has just been signed (March, 1899), conceding that the 
whole Nile basin falls within the English sphere of influence. 
This is certainly the greatest triumph for English diplomacy 
since the Berlin treaty of 1878. 

The African question seems settled, but ere the century is 
out there may be grave trouble in another region, the extreme 
~, P East. Since the war of 1895 between China and 

Eastern Japan, the Chinese empire seems to be falling to 

question. pieces. Our own wish has always been to preserve, 
if possible, its integrity, to favour the progress of reforms, and 
meanwhile to maintain the " open door" for all foreign commerce 
in all its ports. This policy is crossed by that of Russia, 
Germany, and France, all strongly protectionist powers, who wish 
to establish spheres of influence in China, and to monopolize 
the trade of them for themselves. Russia has lately obtained 
possession, euphemistically called a " lease," of the northern 



THE FAR EAST. 209 

harbours of Ta-lien-Whan and Port Arthur, while Germany 
has seized Kiau-Chau and the surrounding territory on similar 
terms. To balance this we have ourselves taken over Wei-Hai- 
Wei, which faces Port Arthur across the great northern Gulf of 
Pechili. We have also extorted from the Chinese Government 
a promise not to alienate any of Central China, the basin of the 
Yang-tse-Kiang river. To what further developments these 
" leases " and agreements may lead, it is impossible to say, 
but it is evident that the gravest dangers of friction between 
the great powers underlie them. 

While our foreign relations in every part of the world have 
been so strained during the last few years, it is natural that 
domestic matters should be less interesting. The C4. 4.^ ^r 
Government has carried out a certain amount of political 
small social reforms, and one or two measures of P^^^^^^* 
somewhat greater importance. The wisdom of some of them 
is not quite clear. The relaxation of the vaccination laws seems 
a mere piece of pandering to popular sentiment ; and the Irish 
Local Government Act of i8g8 is an experiment whose 
dangers are obvious, and which can only be justified by 
success. Now that the horizon abroad is clearer, it may be 
hoped that the old policy of unpretentious domestic reform, 
which Lord Beaconsfield first bound up with the Conservative 
programme, may be persevered in by his successors. Few 
governments certainly have had such chances as the present 
administration ; their adversaries are not only weak, but torn by 
their internal discords. Mr. Gladstone died on May 19, 1898, 
after three years of retirement from politics, at the great age 
of eighty-eight. His name and influence had done much to 
keep his party together even after he had withdrawn from 
active life. Since his death they have been more divided than 
ever, and seem unable to formulate any accepted political 
programme. The Anti-Parnellite party has resolved itself 
into two hostile factions, which only unite to repudiate the 
Parrifllites. The Radical party has changed its leader twice 

P 



2IO ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

in three years, and seems rent by intrigues resting on purely 
personal quarrels. " Home Rule," we have been told on 
good Radical authority, " is dead," yet it is difficult to see 
under what other banner the heterogeneous elements of the 
opposition are to unite. Nevertheless, it is impossible to 
forget that the " swing of the pendulum " has regularly ruled 
the general elections of the last thirty years ; it will be curious 
to see if it shows itself once more in that of 1901. 

Meanwhile the century draws towards its close, with domestic 
politics in a far more stagnant condition than at any other 
date since the days of Palmerston. Foreign affairs, after the 
termination of the Fashoda incident, seem almost equally quiet, 
and the observer can pause for a moment on the edge of the 
twentieth century to look back on the later years of the 
nineteenth. 

As we had occasion to remark in the chapter which dealt 
with early- Victorian England, the years since 1850 have not 
been fraught with such sweeping changes as those of the 
previous half-century. For the most part they have been 
spent in the working out of problems which had already been 
formulated in the previous generation. In things material this 
has notably been the case. We are still engaged in perfecting 
the inventions of our grandfathers, in developing already dis- 
covered realms of fact or thought rather than in winning new 
ones. This is as true in science as in literature, in politics 
as in art. The great new departures belong to the first half 
of the century ; the second does but carry them on. In some 
channels of activity the current seems to be running very 
slowly in 1899, and in none more so than in literature. The list 
of great writers now at work compares miserably with that of 
1875, and still worse with that of 1850. Few men of the 
younger generation have arisen to replace the lost masters 
of the early- Victorian age. 

In some respects, it cannot be denied, the later years of the 
century have been a time of disillusion and disappointment. 



TPIE END OF THE CENTURY.. 211 

Many of the ideas that inspired enthusiasm forty years ago 
have been tried in the balance and found wanting. The state 
of foreign politics seems heartrending to those who remembei 
the dreams of peace, liberty, and international good-will which 
sanguine prophets held out as the inevitable results that would 
follow from the unification of Germany and Italy, and the 
establishment of a parliamentary republic in France. Equally 
broken is the ideal of the elder exponents of free trade, who 
believed that a sort of industrial Millennium was to set in, 
when England frankly abandoned protection and opened her 
markets to all the producers of the world. The promises of 
1850 have never appeared further from fulfilment than in 1899. 
The same kind of pity for lost hopes comes over us when we 
read the writings of well-meaning persons of the last generation, 
who were imbued with such a blind faith in scientific discovery 
that they made out of it a kind of " gospel of science," which 
was to settle all mental and moral problems. We no lono-er 
imagine that new facts in chemistry or physiology will help 
much to reform the evil ways of the world. The idea that 
material progress must necessarily lead to moral progress has 
gone out of fashion. 

But if we face the coming years with less enthusiasm and 
confidence than some of our fathers felt, it cannot be said that 
we look forward on the twentieth century with fear or dis- 
couragement. Not in blind pride and reckless self-assertion 
but with a reverent trust that the guidance which has not failed 
us in the past may still lead us forward, strong in the belief in 
our future that grows from a study of our past, we go forth to 
the toils and problems of another age. 



CHAPTER X. 

INDIA AND THE COLONIES IMPERIAL FEDERATIOIf-*- 

CONCLUSION. 

When the nineteenth century opened, the British flag was 
already planted in most of the regions where it now waves, 
The British ^^^ ^^ almost every quarter our possessions were 
Empire in mere streaks along the coast-line, or islands of 
1800. moderate extent. The empire which the elder 

Pitt, Clive, and Warren Hastings had won for us, was but 
in an early stage of development. Beyond the Atlantic, 
the West Indies, with their rich sugar and coffee planta- 
C ada and ^^^^^^5 were by far our most important posses- 
the West sion. Canada was still mainly French in popula- 
indies. ^^Qj^^ ^j^^ j^Qj. j-g^iiy settled beyond Toronto and 

Kingston ; inland and westward there was nothing but wastes 
of forest and prairie, the "great lone land," which was 
not to be taken under cultivation till the second half of the 
century. Then the British claim to the North- Western Territory 
as far as the Arctic Circle was only marked by a score of forts 
belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, to which the scanty 
Indian population came to barter their furs and skins. A fort 
on Nootka Sound by Vancouver's Island was then the sole 
sign that British colonization was about to extend as far as the 
Pacific. Across that ocean Australia was already counted as a 
British possession, but the only settlement that it 
contained was the convict colony of Botany Bay. 
It had been founded so recently as 1788, and Sydney was in 



THE EMPIRE IN 1801. 213 

its earliest, and not over happy, infancy. In India we were 
already the masters of broad provinces, and all the three pre- 
sidencies were in existence. Bengal and Bahar, 
the prizes of Chve's victory at Plassey (1757), were 
by far the most important of the territories that obeyed the 
East India Company, and Calcutta was already the greatest 
port of India. But the Boml ay presidency comprised hardly 
anything outside the island and city which give it its name, the 
old dowry of Catharine of Braganza. The Madras presidency 
consisted of four or five scattered patches of territory, taken 
some from the Nizam of Hyderabad, some in a recent war 
(1793) from Tippoo Sultan of Mysore. Three important 
native princes, the Nawabs of Oude, of the Carnatic, and of 
the Deccan (the Nizam), were bound to us by somewhat 
elastic ties of dependence ; they followed our lead in politics, 
and supported large bodies of British sepoys by their subsi- 
dies. All three had become our vassals to get protection from 
dangerous neighbours in the inland. Sultan Tippoo and the 
freebooters of the Mahratta confederacy. Ceylon had just 
been conquered from the Dutch (1796), but till the Treaty of 
Amiens it was quite uncertain whether the island was to 
remain permanently in our hands. 

In Africa our hold was still more insignificant ; half a dozen 
forts on the pestilential coast of Guinea were our only 
ancient colonies. We were in military possession . ^ . 
of the Cape of Good Hope, taken from the Dutch the Medi- 
in 1796, but this important settlement had not t^^^anean. 
been confirmed to us by any treaty. x\s a matter of fact, 
we were about to restore it to the Dutch at the Peace of 
Amiens, and our permanent hold on it was only to begin in 
1806. How Egypt was won in 1801 we have related in our 
first chapter. In the Mediterranean there was no spot that we 
could really call our own save Gibraltar. From Malta we had 
just evicted the French garrison, and Minorca was also in our 
hands for the moment (1798-1802). But though occupied 



214 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

by British garrisons, they were in no sense British pos- 
sessions. 

At the peace of 1802 the position was grievously changed for 
the worse, owing to the reckless way in which we gave back to 
Results of Bonaparte all the points of vantage from which we 
the Peace of had, with such difficulty, evicted his republican 
Amiens. predecessors. Of all our conquests, only Trinidad 

and Ceylon were retained. Spain recovered Minorca, France 
all her West Indian possessions, Holland the Cape of 
Good Hope, Surinam and Demerara, Turkey her Egyptian 
Pashalik. 

When, therefore, the short and troubled period of peace in 
1802-3 had come to an end, we had to repeat the wearisome 
Ene-lish process of eviction that had been carried out once 

reconquests, before between 1793 and 1801. In the first three 
1803-1 II. years of the struggle with Bonaparte, the dread 
of an invasion of England was too pressing to allow us to send 
large expeditions far from our own shores. But after 1805, 
the sure and steady reconquest of the outlying dependencies 
of France and Holland began. The Cape was recovered in 
1806 ; Curagoa and the rest of the Dutch West Indies in 1807. 
Martinique, Senegal with the other French ports of West 
Africa, and also French Guiana (Cayenne), fell in 1809 ; 
Guadaloupe, in the West Indies, and the Isles of France and 
Bourbon in the East, were taken in 1810 ; and with the capture 
of the great and wealthy island of Java in 181 1, Napoleon 
ceased to possess a single transmarine colony. He had him- 
self sold Louisiana to the United States, in order to prevent it 
falling into our hands, while in Hayti (St. Domingo), once 
the most wealthy of all the French dependencies, the garrison 
had been exterminated by the insurgent negroes, who had 
formed an anarchic republic in servile imitation of their former 
republican masters. 

While the tricolour was being lowered from one island after 
another in the Eastern seas, we were in India deeply engaged 



LORD WELLESLEY IN INDIA. 215 

in a struggle against French influence, if not against French 

armies. One of Bonaparte's favourite dreams t-j-^ Yhe 

was to stir up the princes of Hindostan against conquest of 
their British neighbours. While in Egypt, he ysore. 
had sent his emissaries to Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore : buoyed 
up by false hopes of French aid, the reckless son of the great 
Hyder Ali had committed himself to war with England. But 
his armies had been scattered, and he himself fell sword in 
hand as he strove to defend the breach at Seringapatam from 
Baird's stormers (May, 1799). About half his dominions were 
annexed to the Madras presidency. 

The conquest of Mysore was but the first blow which Lord 
Wellesley, the able and ambitious Governor-General of India, 
directed against French influence. The leading 
native power in the peninsula was the Mahratta ^^ri 1 
Confederacy, a league of five great rajahs, of and the 
whom four owed a nominal allegiance to the fifth, Confede^c 
who bore the title of Peishwa. Most of these 
princes had taken into their pay French officers, who had 
raised and disciplined for them many battalions of trained 
Sepoys. Scindia alone, the rajah of Gwalior, possessed some 
30,000 or more of such troops. Wellesley believed that there 
was a great danger for the British power in the existence of 
such large masses of men led by French commanders, and 
was anxious to induce the Mahrattas to come under British 
suzerainty and dismiss their foreign officers. But the rajahs, 
proud of their position as the chief military power in India, 
had no wish to surrender their independence. 

Fortunately for Wellesley's plans, the Peishwa, Bajee Rao, 
having quarrelled with his two greatest vassals, Scindia and 
Holkar, fled to seek the protection of the Bombay Restoration 
Government, and was induced to buy his restora- of the 
tion to his throne by signing the 'treaty of Bassein P^^^hwa. 
(1802). By this instrument he undertook to subordinate his 
foreign policy to that of the British, and to pay an annual tribute 



2i6 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

for the subvention of a body of British troops. He was 

accordingly restored to his seat at Poonah by armed force ; but 

his submission to the governor-general led to two wars between 

the East India Company and the other Mahratta princes. 

First Scindia, and his ally the rajah of Nagpore, attacked the 

British; but they were unable to hold their ground. Lord 

„ , Lake, starting from Benojal, beat Scindia's northern 

Battle of T • /XT / ox 

Laswari army at Laswari (November i, 1003), and took 

Capture of Delhi, the ancient capital of India There he 

found the aged Mogul emperor. Shah Alum, who 
had long been the captive of the Mahrattas, and, having rescued 
him from his oppressors, proceeded to use his name to 
legitimize all our doings in Hindostan. Meanwhile, Arthur 

Wellesley, the governor-general's brother — the 

Battle of Wellington of a later day — was operating further 

Argaum — to the south. At Assaye he cut to pieces Scindia's 

b t* French Sepoys, after the bloodiest struggle that 

India had yet seen. Fording a deep river and 
advancing on a narrow front under an overwhelming fire of 
artillery, he threw his troops upon the disciplined battalions of 
the Mahratta chief. Nearly a third of the British fell, but 
Scindia's host was broken and his regular troops cut to pieces 
(September 23, 1803). A few weeks later Wellesley attacked 
the rajah of Nagpore at Argaum, and inflicted upon him an 
equally severe lesson (November 28, 1803). The allied princes 
thereupon came to terms, and acknowledged the British 
supremacy. Scindia was compelled to surrender Delhi and the 
Doab, the nucleus of our " North-West Provinces," as also 
some maritime districts opposite Bombay, while the rajah of 
Nagpore ceded Orissa, on the eastern coast of India, whick 
was incorporated with the presidency of Bengal. Immediately 

after it became necessary to attack Scindia's rival 
of^H^lkar" ^^^ enemy, Holkar, who tried in his turn to expel 

the British from North-Western India. He was 
an evasive and lightly moving enemy, who proved very difficult 



INDIA IN 1805. 217 

to catch, but was finally run to ground and beaten at Deeg and 
Furruckabad (November, 1804). 

Before Holkar was quite disposed of, Wellesley had been com- 
pelled to resign the governor-generalship and to retire home, 
on account of his many quarrels with his masters, 
the East India Company (1805). They did not Lord 
appreciate the greatness of his conceptions or the ^^^ ^j.^^ ^ 
splendour of his conquests, and only thought of creator of 
him as a great spender of money. It was Wellesley Empire, 
who really built up the British Empire in India. 
Before his day we did but possess a few scattered provinces 
spread along the coast. He it was who conceived the idea of 
pressing all the native states to accept " subsidiary treaties," 
and to acknowledge the suzerainty of the East India Company. 
By seizing and retaining Delhi, the old imperial city, he claimed 
for his masters the supremacy in the peninsula, which had slipped 
out of the hands of the Moguls eighty years before. His un- 
bounded power over the native princes who were vassals of the 
Company, was shown by his annexation of the whole of the 
Carnatic in i8ot, because its nawabs had drifted into bank- 
ruptcy and showed themselves utterly unable to administer 
their broad realm. For similar reasons, he cut short the 
borders of our almost equally unsatisfactory dependent, the 
Nawab of Oude. 

After Wellesley's work v/as accomplished, we can for the 
first time speak of the British Empire of India ; before then 
there was at most a British Empire in India, with which large 
sections of the peninsula had no political connection. 

The working out of Wellesley's plans was not destined to be 
completed for many years. His successors. Lord 
Cornwallis (1805) and Lord Minto (1807-13), ^^f"/*^" 
made no attempt to finish the subjection of Lords Corn- 
the native states, merely patching up a series ^- i^ ^ 
of treaties which secured the integrity of our new 
frontiers. Lord Minto devoted himself to the complete 



2i8 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

conquest of Napoleon's scattered colonies in the east, occu- 
pying Bourbon and the Isle of France in 1809, and so making 
an end of the privateers who, from their base in those islands, 
were wont to swoop down on the Indiamen that passed by on 
their long voyage round the Cape. He also overran Java and 
the Spice Islands in 181 1, sending against them the largest 
expedition that had yet been fitted out in British India. Thus, 
when the Congress of Vienna met in 181 4, the tricolour flag 
had been swept completely out of all the Eastern seas. 

Nothing is more striking in the history of the Napoleonic 
war than the reckless generosity with which we restored, in 

1 814, the greater part of their lost colonies to 
Generous the new governments of France and Holland, in 
GreS order that they might make a fair start in their 

Britain at subjects' eyes, and not take over the administra- 
ofVie^nna^ tion laden with the burden of their predecessors' 

sins. In our solicitude for the welfare of Louis 
XVIII. and King William I., we gave back well-nigh all that 
we had conquered since the beginning of the century. Malta 
was retained, and the Ionian Isles, with the full consent of their 
inhabitants; there was no reason why the latter should any 
longer follow the fate of Venice, or the former be, handed 
back to the obsolete order of the Knights of St John. We 
also kept the French Isle of France and the Dutch settlement 
at the Cape of Good Hope, as strategical points of supreme 
importance covering the route to India. But all the rest was 
surrendered. Java, an empire in itself, the very pearl of the 
East, went back to Holland along with Cura^oa and Surinam. 
To the French were restored not only their old West Indian 
Islands and their insignificant possessions in India, but several 
small colonies whose cession in 18 14 would have caused no 
friction, but which since have proved intolerable nuisances to 
the British Empire. From Bourbon they have in recent days 
pushed over to Madagascar, and there destroyed our trade and 
our flourishing missionary stations. From Goree and Senegal, 



THE TREATY OF VIENNA. 219 

on the West African coast, they have gone out to conquer the 
" hinterland " of our old colonies of Gambia and Sierra Leone. 
Even more foolish, perhaps, was the restoration of St. Pierre 
and the fishery rights on the coast of Newfoundland, which 
have been used ever since to hinder the natural development of 
that ancient dependency of the British Crown. All these 
places, insignificant, perhaps, in 18 14, but of infinite importance 
in modern days, Liverpool and Castlereagh gave away with a 
reckless indifference to the future which we cannot too much 
deplore. 

Down to 18 1 5 the story of the Napoleonic war lends to the 
history of the British Empire a certain unity which disappears 
after that date is passed. From the Congress of Vienna down 
to the days of Lord Beaconsfield and the new Imperialism, there 
are very few connecting links between the annals of our various 
dependencies. The history of each group must be followed 
out separately down to the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century. 

India first demands our attention. At the time of the Treaty 
of Vienna there ruled at Calcutta a governor-general who was a 
worthy successor to Wellesley, and completed the 
work from which his great predecessor had been ^" • ^ 
so prematurely withdrawn. Francis Rawdon, Hastings in 
Marquis of Hastings, one of the last surviving g vvT: 
heroes of the war of American independence, was 
already an old man when he went out to India in 18 13, but he 
ruled the land for ten years, and left his mark behind him. His 
first efforts were directed against the Gurkhas, the warlike 
mountain tribes of Nepaul, who were too prone to make raids 
on the northern limits of Bengal. They were defeated after 
much hard fighting (1814-16), and driven back into their hills; 
but, since we made no effort to take away their independence, 
they retained no grudge against us, and have served as 
auxiliaries with great fidelity and courage in all our subsequent 
wars. 



220 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

After driving back the Gurkhas, Lord Hastings cleared 
Central India of the Pindaris, a number of companies of 

mercenary adventurers, like those which infested 
subjugation Mediaeval Italy, who had been for many years 
of ^JJ6 the scourge of the Deccan. Directing expeditions 

against them from all the three presidencies, 
so as to enclose them in a ring, he gradually hunted them 
down, till their bands broke up and their leader Cheetoo fled 
alone into the jungle, there to be devoured by a tiger (1818). 
The Pindari war led Hastings into a greater struggle with the 
greater part of the Mahratta states. Their princes had given 
the freebooters secret help, hoping to weaken the English 
power by their aid. The leader in the plot was the Peishwa 
Bajee Rao, who had never ceased to regret the state of 
dependence in which he had been placed by the Treaty 
of Bassein, and wished to throw off his vassalage to the East 
India Company. His allies were Appa Sahib, the rajah of 
Nagpore, and the regents who ruled the dominion of the 
young Holkar, the rajah of Indore. But formidable as the 
confederacy appeared, Hastings crushed it without much effort. 
The allies were never allowed to combine : the rajah of 
Nagpore was defeated before the gates of his own capital 
(November, 1817); the armies of Holkar were scattered at 
Mahidpore (December, 181 7). The Peishwa, hunted from his 
capital Poonah, was brought to bay at Ashtee (February 19, 
18 18), and so thoroughly beaten that he came into the British 
camp and surrendered himself. This war made an end of 
the Mahrattas as a danger to India ; the confederacy was 
dissolved, and the Peishwa's dominion annexed to the Bombay 
presidency. The Nagpore rajah was deposed, the Holkar 
state was shorn of a third of its territories. Not only were 
Holkar and the new rajah of Nagpore compelled to become 
British vassals and to conclude subsidiary treaties with the 
East India Company, but their compeers Scindia and the 
Gaikwar of Baroda, though they had not been engaged in 



SUBMISSION OF THE MAHRATTAS. 



221 



the war, were induced to follow their example. Thus the 
British Empire was extended over all Western India, and the 
only states south of the Himalayas which did not now fall 




under our domination were the Sikhs beyond the Sutlej, and 
the ameers of distant Scinde. 

From 1818 to 1838 India enjoyed a long interval of 
comparative quiet, during which the native princes settled 



222 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

down to the new state of things, while the governor-generals 
were mainly engaged in organizing our newly 
Surmese acquired possessions. The only war of impor- 
tance in the period was one with the King of 
Burmah (1824-26). That barbarous potentate, in utter ignor- 
ance of the strength of British India, indulged in vain dreams 
of conquering Bengal. But when his bands crossed the 
frontier they were easily routed, and an expedition, sent by 
sea to Rangoon, pushed up the Irrawadi to within a few 
miles of Ava, the capital of Burmah. Thereupon the king 
sued for peace, and obtained it on conditions of ceding 
Assam, at the foot of the Himalayas, and the long swampy 
coast district of Aracan. 

Events far more important than the Burmese war began 
in 1838. Ever since the beginning of the century we had 
looked with suspicion on the gradual advance 
ad^^ance ^^ ^^^ Russians in Central Asia. Bonaparte 

towards the had twice (1800 and 1809) endeavoured to 
fronUer ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ Russian Government to an overland 

expedition against India, a project wholly 
chimerical, as long as the waste lands east of the Caspian 
and the independent khanates of Turkestan interposed a 
barrier of many hundred miles between the Russian bases 
at Orenburg and Astrakhan and the westernmost limits of 
Hindostan. But since 1809 the Russians had been pushing 
steadily forward; and in 1837 they had encouraged their 
ally the Shah of Persia to besiege Herat, the frontier fortress 
of Afghanistan, and had begun negotiations with the Ameer 
Dost Mahomed, who ruled at Cabul. 

The advisers of Lord Auckland, governor-general from 
1835 to 1842, were unreasonably alarmed at these intrigues, 
and resolved to go forward to meet a danger which was not 
yet imminent. A former ruler of Afghanistan, Shah Sujah, 
was living as an exile in India since his expulsion by Dost 
Mahomed; we concluded a treaty with him (1838), by which 



THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 223 

we undertook to replace him on his throne, he, on his part, 

undertakins; to become the friend and ally of the , 

° Lord 

British Government. Our army crossed the Auckland's 

Indus, traversed the Bolan Pass, occupied Can- Afghan 

policy — 
dahar, and stormed the fortress of Ghuzni (1839). Restoration 

Shah 'Sujah was placed upon the throne of his ^ Shah 

ancestors at Cabul, and the British troops began 

to withdraw towards India ; but, as some of the Afghans were 

still up in arms, we left garrisons at Cabul and Candahar 

to aid the Shah. 

Any ruler maintained on his throne by British bayonets 

is bound to be unpopular among the wild and fanatical tribes 

of Afghanistan, and Shah Sujah's subjects were ry^^^ ^^:^ 

determined not to submit to the friend of the of the Cabul 

infideis. In the winter of 1841, insurrections &^^^^son. 

broke out all over the country : the Candahar force, under 

General Nott, successfully maintained itself, but a dreadful 

disaster happened at Cabul. There our troops were in the 

weak hands of General Elphinstone, a veteran broken down 

by age and disease, who ought never to have been left in 

such a responsible position. He divided his force, sending 

one brigade under Sir Robert Sale to hold the fortress of 

Jelalabad, which commands the main pass from India. With 

the other he intended to overawe Cabul ; but the city rose 

in arms, and soon he was blockaded in his cantonments. 

His provisions ran short, and after much desultory fighting 

he ofl^ered to evacuate the country if he was given a free exit. 

The treacherous Afghans eagerly accepted the proposal, but, 

when the troops were threading their way through the snows 

of the Khoord-Cabul pass, fell upon them and in a running 

fight of three days exterminated the whole force. A single 

officer. Dr. Brydon, cut his way to Jelalabad with the news 

that all his comrades had perished. This was the greatest 

disaster we have ever suifered in the East : one English 

regiment, the 44th foot, and five regiments of sepoys, 4500 



224 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

men in all, were absolutely annihilated ; with them perished 
more than 10,000 of their Hindoo camp followers. 

The Indian Government was slow to believe in such an 
unprecedented calamity, but when it was realized, a powerful 
P J force under General Pollock entered Afghanistan 

Pollock's to relieve Jelalabad. The garrison of that place, 
expedition, however, had not only defended it, but had sallied 
out into the open and defeated the main army of the enemy. 
Pollock, picking up Sale's victorious troops on the way, marched 
on Cabul, on which point Nott also pushed forward with the 
Candahar brigade. The Afghans were thoroughly routed ; 
Cabul was taken, and its chief buildings blown up as a retribu- 
tion for the treacherous massacre of Elphinstone's army. But 
Shah Sujah had been assassinated long ago, and there was no 
object in lingering in the barren and hostile country; so our 
armies were withdrawn, and Dost Mahomed was permitted to 
resume the throne from which we had driven him (1842). For 
more than thirty years successive governor-generals severely let 
alone the country where we had suffered such a disaster. Lord 
Auckland's " forward policy," indeed, had been wholly unjusti- 
fiable ; he did not know the Afghans, and he had failed to 
see how difficult it would have been to hold such a country 
when the powerful and independent Sikh kingdom, occupying 
the Punjaub, lay between us and the only direct route to 
Cabul. 

The Afghan war was finished by Lord Ellenborough, an able 
administrator, whose only fault was his tendency to issue 

magniloquent proclamations in the style of the 
Lord Ellen- first Napoleon (1842-45). He had a dangerous 
Battle of crisis to face, as our prestige had been greatly 
Meanee— shaken by the Cabul disaster, but came safely 
of Scinde. through it. He added to the limits of British 

India by annexing Scinde, whose ameers had 
shown symptoms of hostility in 1843. They were subdued by 
Sir Charles Napier, a veteran of the Peninsular War, who beat 



THE SIKH WARS. 225 

at Meanee an army of more than twelve times his own 
numbers, composed of gallant tribesmen who repeatedly pushed 
up to the very bayonets of the British troops (February 17, 1843). 
This was one of the most astonishing victories ever gained in 
Hindostan. 

Two years later we found ourselves involved in a war with 
the sole remaining state in India which preserved its full 
independence. For nearly fifty years the Punjaub p ••i.c- u 
had formed a powerful kingdom under the Sikh and the Sikh 
despot Run jit Singh, a man of genius, who had P°^^^- 
formed his co-religionists into an invincible army, with which 
he conquered his Mohammedan neighbours and held down all 
India north of the Sutlej. Knowing the might of Britain, he 
had always kept on the most friendly terms with the East India 
Company, but when he died in 1839 trouble ensued. The 
proud and fanatical army which he had created would obey no 
meaner masters, and Runjit Singh's successors perished, the 
victims of military mutinies or palace conspiracies. Quite 
contrary to the will of their nominal rulers, the Sikh troops 
resolved to attack the British, hoping to take Delhi and 
conquer the whole peninsula. They were for a moment not 
far from succeeding, and if their leaders had been capable and 
loyal to each other, the consequences of their adventure might 
have been tremendous. 

In December, 1845, ^^^Y crossed the Sutlej into British 

territory with 60,000 men, and found themselves confronted by 

a much smaller army hastily gathered together by 

Lord Hardinge, the governor-general. He en- b° j- 

trusted his troops to Sir Hugh Gough, a hot- and the 

headed old soldier, whose only tactics consisted • . 

' ■' invasion. 

in hurling his infantry straight at the enemy and 
endeavouring to sweep them away with one desperate charge. 
This sort of attack answered well enough against ordinary 
Indian troops, but the Sikhs were made of sterner stuff. The 
fighting with them was very desperate; no less than five 

Q 



226 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

pitched battles were fought between December i8, 1845, and 
February 10, 1846. 

The crucial struggle was at Ferozeshah, where Gough's head- 
long courage failed on the first day to force the Sikh lines ; 
o ,,j r his Sepoy battalions flinched, and his European 
Ferozeshah regiments suffered the most frightful losses. Next 
andSobraon. ^^^ ^^ resumed the struggle; but the enemy, 
whose losses had also been tremendous, had not the heart to 
face two pitched battles on successive days, and sullenly retired. 
The campaign terminated at Sobraon (February 10), when 
Gough had to storm a circular entrenched position with the Sutlej 
at its back. Leading his troops forward with his customary 
impetuosity, he saw them driven back from assault after 
assault. But finally the Sikhs ungarnished one front of their 
works, while reinforcing the rest ; a British column penetrated 
into the gap, and the gallant enemy were finally driven into the 
Sutlej, where thousands perished when their bridge of boats 
broke down. Ten days later the British army appeared in 
front of Lahore, and the Sikh government asked for terms. 
We recognized the young rajah Dhuleep Singh as the successor 
of Runjit Singh ; but he was ordered to pay a heavy fine, to 
cut his army down to 30,000 men, and to surrender the south- 
eastern corner of his dominions, where they reached nearest to 
Delhi. 

But the spirit of the Sikhs was not yet broken ; they looked 
upon themselves, not as beaten, but as betrayed by incompetent 
generals, and were quite ready to try the fortune 
Chillian° ^^ ^^^ ^"^^ more. Only two years after Sobraon 
wallah and (March, 1848), Moolraj, the governor of Mooltan, 
ujera . massacred some British officers, and appealed to 

the old army to take the field once more and throw off the 
foreign yoke. The whole Punjaub at once blazed up into 
insurrection, and the work of 1846 had to be repeated. 
Unhappily for the British troops, they were still under the 
command of the headstrong Gough, who showed that he had 



SETTLEMENT OF THE PUNJAUB. 227 

learnt nothing from experience. After two checks, into which 

his rashness led him, in the autumn of 1848, he brought the 

main Sikh army to action at Chillianwallah. ■ There he delivered 

a frontal attack on an enemy screened by a jungle and covered 

by a tremendous fire of artillery. Some of the British brigades 

were almost blown to pieces, but the valour of the survivors 

evicted the Sikhs from their lines, and Chillianwallah counts as a 

victory (January 11, 1849). But the war was really settled by the 

decisive action of Goojerat (February 6), where for once Gough 

was persuaded to allow his artillery to batter the enemy's lines 

before the infantry was let loose. Shaken by the fire of eighty 

heavy guns, the Sikhs broke when the attack was delivered, and 

the British won the field with small loss — a great contrast to 

their sufferings at Ferozeshah and Chillianwallah. 

A month later the whole Sikh army laid down its Settlement 

arms, and the Punjaub was annexed (March, Punjaub by 

1840). The problem of its settlement appeared Sir John 

^^' . Lawrence. 

likely to be so difficult that picked men were 

drafted in from all the presidencies to take up the task, 

their chief being the administrator Sir John Lawrence. The 

work was so well done that the new province settled down into 

great quiet and content, and when, eight years later, the Sepoy 

mutiny broke out, we were able to enlist our old enemies of the 

Sikh army by the thousand to put down the rebels of Delhi 

and Oude. 

The annexation of the Punjaub was carried out by Lord 

Dalhousie, who as governor-general did more to extend the 

limits of British territory than any of his prede- 

.u AT • r TT • TT Lord Dal- 

cessors smce the Marquis 01 Hastings. He was housie and 

strongly of opinion that the government of the the native 

feudatory princes was so bad, that it was for the 

true interest of India that as many of them as possible should 

be got rid of, and their possessions taken under direct British 

rule. With this object, he refused to fall in with the prevailing 

native custom by which childless rulers were allowed to adopt 



228 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

into their family any one whom they chose, and to pass on to 
Annexation them their full rights of sovereignty. In this way 
of Satara he declared, in 1848, that the Mahratta state of 
an agpur. g^j--jj.g^ y^^^ fallen in as a lapsed fief for want of an 
heir. In 1853 the much larger and more important principality 
of Nagpore was annexed on the same principle, and formed 
into the " Central Provinces." Jhansi, a third Mahratta state, 
w^as taken over for the same reason in 1854. When Bajee 
Rao — the Peishwa who had been stripped of his dominions, but 
not of his title, in 1818 — died in 1853, Dalhousie refused to 
allow his title to be passed on to his adopted son Dhundu Punt, 
and gave him a pension instead. These acts seemed to the 
Hindoos to strike at the roots of all family life and ancestral 
custom. They could not understand the English view, by 
which an adopted child is regarded as something very different 
from the actual son of his benefactor. In their ideas, the 
annexation of Nagpore or Jhansi was simple robbery. 

Dalhousie also succeeded in shocking Mohammedan feeling 
by his seizure of Oude in 1856. The last king of that state 

was an incurable spendthrift and a reckless 
Annexation r ^ • i • t^ n • r 

of Oude and oppressor 01 his subjects. Dalhousie, after 

part of repeated warnings, declared him deposed, and 

Burmah. ^ ^ , . i , , 

made a new province out or his wealthy but 

dilapidated realm. To these enormous confiscations inside 
India, he added one external conquest. The king of Burmah 
having molested the English merchants of Rangoon on many 
occasions, Dalhousie declared war on him in 1852, and drove 
him out of Pegu and the lands at the mouth of the Irrawaddy. 
They were added to Aracan, and formed into the new province 
of British Burmah. 

Dalhousie was something more than a mere annexer of 
Dalhousie's territory. He was a great reformer and organizer, 
internal introduced railways and telegraphs into India, 

policy. fostered the education of the natives, and en- 

deavoured to give them more places in the civil service than 



ORIGINS OF THE SEPOY MUTINY. 229 

had seemed good to his predecessors. Nevertheless, his actions 
must be considered as having contributed to a very considerable 
degree towards precipitating the great rebellion which broke 
out soon after his departure for England in 1856. 

The origins of this fearful convulsion are not hard to trace, 
though the exact proportion which each cause had in pro- 
ducing the rising of 1857 is more difficult to 
ascertain. The Mutiny was mainly a military ^usesofthe 
conspiracy ; it was only in Oude and a few other Condition of 

districts that the population of the countryside ^"^ native 

^ ^ -' army. 

took any active part in it. For some years before 

the outbreak the spirit of the native army had been steadily 
deteriorating. The old notion of the invincibility of the 
British arms had been shaken by the Afghan disaster of 1841, 
and by the narrow escape from defeat in the Sikh campaign of 
1845-46. No tie of natural loyalty bound the Sepoys to the 
government which they served ; indeed, a very large proportion 
of them were born subjects of the king of Oude, and resented 
his deposition. They were kept true by their pay and im- 
munities, by their respect and affection for their officers, and by 
their wholesome dread of the European garrison of India. All 
these motives had been shaken of late ; the Government had 
been offending them by sending them on over-sea expeditions 
to Burmah and China. Some of their old privileges, e.g. extra 
pay for service beyond the Sutlej, had been abolished. The 
tie of personal loyalty to their hierarchical superiors had been 
much loosened ; the British officers no longer spent their whole 
life with their regiment, and were often transferred from corps 
to corps or detached on civil employ. The comparative 
easiness of obtaining leave to England since the Overland 
Route had been invented, and steamships had brought India 
within six weeks' voyage of London, was not without its effect. 
Moreover, in 1857 the proportion of British to native troops in 
India was abnormally low ; many of the regiments summoned 
to Europe for the Crimean war had not been replaced, and 



230 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

what white troops there were had been mainly concentrated in 
the newly annexed Punjaub. Between the Sutlej and Calcutta 
there were, at the moment of the outbreak, only six British 
battalions. 

A great mercenary army which has begun to despise its 
masters, and thinks it has a grievance against them, is ripe for 
revolt. The Sepoys had been so much pampered and petted 
by the Government, that they thought that it could not do 
without them. It only needed a cause and a cry to spur 
them into open rebellion. 

The cause was supplied by political intriguers, largely drawn 
from the ranks of those who had suffered by 
Sepoys— Dalhousie's annexations. The dependants of the 
The greased ex-king of Oude were a centre of discontent among 
' the Mohammedans, and those of the ex-Peishwa 
among the Mahrattas. The secret programme laid before 
the Sepoys was the restoration of the Mogul emperor — who 
still lived as a pensioner at Delhi — as the national sovereign of 
India, and the restoration under his suzerainty of all the lately 
annexed states. This scheme would appeal more to Mohamme- 
dans than Hindoos, but the revival of the Peishwaship would 
not be without its effect among the latter. The actual 
cry which set the smouldering elements of rebellion ablaze 
was a foolish rumour, to the effect that the Government was 
about to attempt to force Christianity on its subjects. This 
was to be done, so it was averred, by defiling the soldiers. 
The grease of pigs and of cattle was to be smeared on the 
cartridges which were being issued to the troops for the new 
rifle, with which they were being re-armed. Hindoos would 
loose their caste by touching the lard of the sacred cow, and 
Mohammedans be polluted by handling the fat of the swine. 
All being contaminated, the " Sircar " would invite them to 
become Christians ! This incredibly silly tale found implicit 
credence in many quarters, and seems to have provoked the 
outbreak of the rebellion before its organizers were quite ready. 



OUTBREAK OF THE MUTINY. 231 

It would seem that a general rising had been planned for tht 
month of May, but even before that date isolated risings 
occurred. The first at Barrackpur, near Calcutta, was easily 
suppressed, and the two regiments which took part in it were 
disbanded. The Government had no idea that they were 
dealing with a mere corner of a great conspiracy. 

The serious trouble began with the revolt of the brigade at 
Meerut, a great cantonment near Delhi, on May 7, 1857. The 
mutineers, after shooting many of their officers, 
marched on the ancient capital, induced the Outbreak at 
troops there to aid them, and murdered many Seizure of 
scores of Europeans. They then went to Bahadur Delhi— 
Shah, the aged Mogul prince, and saluted him as ^jjg Mutiny, 
their monarch. He was placed on the throne of 
his ancestors, and hailed as Emperor of India. The news of 
the seizure of Delhi by the rebels flew round northern Hin- 
dostan in a moment, and was followed by mutinies in almost 
every cantonment where a native regiment lay. In most cases 
their rising was accompanied by the murder of their officers 
under circumstances of gross treachery and cruelty. In a few 
weeks the whole of Oude, with Rohilcund and the greater part 
of the North-West Provinces, were in the possession of the 
insurgents. The rising spread into Bahar at one end, and into 
the Central Provinces at the other. The main centres of 
revolt were Lucknow, where a young relative of the old ruler 
of Oude was proclaimed king, and Cawnpore, which was seized 
by the would-be Peishwa Dhundu Punt, the adopted son of 
Bajee Rao — a miscreant better known by the name of the 
Nana Sahib. The English who escaped massacre sought 
refuge in the few stations, such as Agra and Allahabad, where 
there was a European regiment in possession. 

The blow was so sudden and unexpected that for a moment 
the Government was paralyzed : the Punjaub, where lay the 
greater part of the white troops, was separated from Calcutta 
by four hundred miles of territory which had passed to the 



232 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

rebels. It was from Sir John Lawrence in the Punjaiib that the 
first signs of movement came. After disarming 
fall of Delhi. ^^^ Sepoys in his district, he sent a small force 
of five thousand British troops against Delhi. 
They forced their way to its gates, and there established them- 
selves, in order to attack a city garrisoned by twice their own 
number of regular troops. So began a siege which lasted from 
June 8 to September 20. Lawrence pushed up to aid the 
besiegers all the white men he could spare, and a quantity 
of new Sikh levies, raised mainly from our old enemies of 1848. 
They behaved admirably, and never for a moment showed any 
signs of disloyalty. On September 14 General Nicholson 
stormed the city, and after six days of desperate street fighting 
the rebel army broke up, and the emperor and all his family 
were taken prisoners. The aged Bahadur Shah himself was 
spared, but his sons and grandson were shot without a trial by 
Major Hodson, the fierce cavalry leader who had followed 
up and seized them. 

Meanwhile, two sieges further to the south had been 

engrossing the rebels of Oude. At Cawnpore General Wheeler, 

with four hundred fighting men and a much larger 

T^ number of women and children, was beleaofuered 

Cawnpore , ' ^ 

massacre by the Nana Sahib in some flimsy entrenchments. 
—Siege of Worn out by heat and starvation, the garrison 
yielded on terms, when they were promised a free 
passage by river to Calcutta. But the treacherous prince fell 
upon them as they were getting into their boats, and slew all 
the men in cold blood (June 27). Two or three hundred 
women and children were saved alive for a time, but when he 
heard that an English force was drawing near Cawnpore, the 
infamous Mahratta had the whole of his unfortunate captives 
hacked to pieces and cast into a well (July 15). A siege with 
a very different result was proceeding at LucknoWj where Sir 
Henry Lawrence, with a single British battalion and a great 
mass of English fugitives, was being attacked by the main body 



RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. 233 

of the Oude rebels. Lawrence was shot early in the siege, but 
his companions defended the extemporized fortifications of the 
Residency for three months against some forty thousand rebels, 
till relief at last came. 

It was brought by Sir Henry Havelock, who had arrived at 
Calcutta with the troops returning from the Persian war,* and 
was promptly sent up country with a mere handful 
of men, to endeavour to save Cawnpore and Lucknow 
Lucknow. He arrived too late to help Wheeler's 
unhappy garrison, but on September 25 cut his way through 
to Lucknow, and there established himself in the midst of the 
rebels, whom he was not strong enough to drive away. The 
gallant defenders of the Residency were not finally relieved till 
November, when Sir Colin Campbell, who had been sent out 
from England with reinforcements, came up and escorted them 
away from their stronghold. 

By this time Delhi had fallen, and England was pouring 

troops by tens of thousands into Calcutta and Bombay. The 

rest of the war consisted in the gradual hemming 

in and huntinof down of the rebels by Sir Colin Arrival of re- 
° ^ inforcements 

Campbell's army. In December he defeated, — Battles of 

outside Cawnpore, the troops of Scindia, who, in ^^^^j!*y ^"^ 
spite of their master's orders, had taken arms 
and joined the Oude insurgents. In February, 1858, he 
marched for the second time on Lucknow, and stormed palace 
after palace, till, after three weeks of hard fighting, the insur- 
gents abandoned the place and fled into Rohilcund (March 
21). There they were beaten again at the battle of Bareilly 
(May 7), and finally dispersed and fled to their homes. To 
the great grief of his pursuers, the infamous Nana Sahib escaped 
the sword and the rope, and got off into the jungles of Nepaul, 
where he is believed to have died of malaria a few weeks latei. 
The only corner where the war now lingered was around 
the Mahratta towns of Gwalior and Jhansi, where the rebellion 

* See p. 141. 



234 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

was headed by the Ranee of the latter place, a cruel princess, 
who had massacred a number of English prisoners to avenge 
the annexation of her late husband's dominions in 1854. She 
fell in battle, armed and fighting like a man, under the walls of 
Gwalior (June 16, 1858). This was the last general engage- 
ment in the war, but for many months more movable columns 
were still hunting down the last scattered bands of insurgents 
in Rohilcund and the Central Provinces. 

Thus ended the dreadful record of the Indian Mutiny, a 
struggle whose horrors moved the heart of England far more 
than any other events which have happened during the last two 
generations. Never have English troops fought better nor 
more ruthlessly ; they were wrought up to frenzy by the trea- 
cherous massacre of unarmed captives and women and children. 
Hence it is not surprising that they never gave quarter, blew 
captured traitors from guns, and hung at sight any one who was 
convicted of having given the least help to the rebels. 

One of the things which had buoyed up the Sepoys in their 
rising was a prophecy that the raj of the East India Company 

was destined to last only a hundred years, count- 
the East i"g onward from Plassey and 1757. The forecast 

India ^as actually fulfilled, though in a different sense 

from what the rebels had expected, for the 
Company was abolished by Act of Parliament in 1858, and its 
administration taken over by the Crown. Since 1833, when its 
constitution had been varied at one of the periodical renewals 
of its charter, it had been forced to give up its trading mono- 
poly and its attempts to restrict the settlement of Europeans in 
India. In 1853 its distribution of patronage had been cur- 
tailed, and its civil service thrown open to competition. At the 
time of its dissolution, therefore, it had ceased to be a mainly 
mercantile concern, and was almost wholly occupied in ad- 
ministration. There was no reason why such work should not 
be under the immediate control of the Crown, and in 1858 the 
whole machinery of government was taken over and placed 



THE SECOND AFGHAN WAR. 235 

under a " Secretary of State for India " and the governor-general, 
whose name was now changed to that of viceroy. The Euro- 
pean troops of the old Company's army became the loist to 
the 109th regiments of the British establishment, and a new 
native army was organized to replace that which had ended so 
disgracefully in the mutiny. 

From 1858 to 1878 the history of India was comparatively 
uneventful. A policy of " masterly inactivity " was pursued as 
regards the external neighbours of the empire, and no fighting 
was on foot, except for the purpose of repelling the intermittent 
raids of the wild tribes of the north-west frontier and the savages 
of Bhootan. The time was one of quiet internal development, 
and agricultural improvements, railways, canals, and the pre- 
vention of famines were the main topics that engrossed the 
attention of successive viceroys. 

This period came to an end with the accession to power of 

Lord Lytton (1876-80), a pupil of Lord Beaconsfield, and a 

strong Imperialist. His viceroyalty opened with 

the proclamation of the Queen as Empress of 7 ^3^^°" 
^ ^ ^ proclaims the 

India in a great durbar held at Delhi on January Queen 

I, 1877, one of the first developments of the " New p^P^^ss of 

Imperialism." But the most important event of 

the time was the second Afghan war (1878-80). It was a 

direct consequence of the political conflict of 

England and Russia at Constantinople after the Xf^^h^^^°"^ 

Turkish war of 1877-78. While hostilities 

between the two powers seemed probable, a Russian 

embassy went to Cabul and enlisted the Ameer Shere 

Ali as a confederate of the Czar. Lord Lytton, resolved to 

stop this new development, declared war on the Afghan ruler, 

and sent three expeditions across the frontier into the Ameer's 

dominions. Candahar having fallen, and Sir Frederick 

Roberts having stormed the Peiwar-Kotal pass and advanced 

close to Cabul, the Ameer fled towards Russian territory, and 

died soon after. His son and successor, Yakub Khan, at once 



236 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

asked for peace, gave guarantees, and received a British envoy 

as a permanent resident in his capital. But this weak prince 

was totally unable to control his wild subjects, who rose in 

arms, murdered the envoy. Sir Louis Cavagnari, and all his 

escort, and proclaimed the "holy war" (Jehad) against the 

British infidels. Lord Lytton was obliged to launch bis armies 

for a second time against Afghanistan. Roberts again marched 

on Cabul, and occupied it after the battle of Charasia, but was 

soon beset by a vast horde of insurgents who beleaguered him 

in his camp. He drove them off, however, and was completely 

triumphant long before reinforcements reached him from India. 

But matters went worse in the south, where the pretender 

Eyub Khan defeated at Maiwand the garrison of Candahar, 

and formed the sie^e of that city. It was saved. 
Battle of , . ., ^. , , , . , , ' 

Maiwand when m very evil plight, by the rapid march of 

Relief of Roberts from Cabul : in twenty-three days he 

Candahar. , , i i i • i 

crossed the mountainous lands which separate 

northern and southern Afghanistan without the loss of a man. 
Falling on the besiegers, he scattered them at the battle ot 
Candahar (September i, 1880), and practically finished the war 
at a single blow. Lord Lytton would have liked to annex 
much of the conquered territory, but Mr. Gladstone was now in 
power at home, and the warlike viceroy was recalled. The 
Liberal Government withdrew our troops, after recognizing as 
ameer Abdur Rahman, a nephew of the late ruler, Shere Ali. 
He has, on the whole, proved a good neighbour to India, and 
kept faithfully the pledges which he made in 1880. 

The next important movement in our Indian Empire was on 
the flank furthest from Afghanistan. The kings of Burmah had 
Final always been vexatious neighbours, and in 1885 

annexation we were drawn into war with Theebaw, a despot 
o urma . ^^iq had massacred all his relatives and entered 
into intrigues with France. His worthless army was scattered 
with ease, and his whole dominion annexed ; but the sup- 
pression of the brigandage {dacoity) which had always prevailed 



THE RUSSIAN DANGER. 237 

in Burmah proved a much harder business than the dethrone- 
ment of the king, and was not finished for several years, during 
which many scores of expeditions had to .be sent out against 
the bandits (1885-89). 

Since then the troubles in India have nearly all been upon 
the north-western frontier, where the slow approach of Russia 
has always to be watched with a jealous eye. She has long 
since put an end to the difficulties of distance, which made 
any designs against our territories impossible in the earlier 
part of the century. The khanate of Bokhara ^ j 
was subdued in 1868, that of Khiva in 1873, the disputeswith 
independent Turkomans of Merv in 1884, so that *^"ssia. 
the Russian boundaries march with those of Afghanistan. Two 
serious frontier disputes between the Ameer Abdur Rahman 
and the governors of Turkestan (1885 and 1895) ended in 
armed collisions, and might have led to war between England 
and Russia if we had not behaved with studied moderation. 
North and east of Afghanistan, ' on the barren waste of the 
Pamirs, the Russian posts are in actual touch with tribes 
subject to direct British rule. 

It was our determination that there should be no further 

encroachment in this quarter which led to the conquest of the 

mountainous Hunza and Nasrar districts in i8q^, -n, „ 

° ^^' The Hunza 

and to the occupation of Chitral. The prince and Chitral 
whom we placed on the throne of the last- expeditions, 
named state was murdered by his kinsmen, who raised a 
rebellion against the British power. This led to the ad- 
mirably planned Chitral expedition of 1895, and to the 
planting of considerable garrisons in that remote and high- 
lying district. 

It was probably the sight of this extension of our influence 
into regions where it had been little known that set many of 
the tribes of the north-western frontier in a ferment in 1897. 
One after another the hordes along the Afghan border took 
arms, and committed outrages within our boundaries. To put 



238 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

them down, an army was drawn together larger than any that 

British India had seen since the great Mutiny. 

. At one time 60,000 men were in the field at once 

campaign '_ 

on the north- against the Afridis and their neighbours. After 
Y^^^^. expeditions had forced their way into the remotest 

valleys of their rugged land, the tribes asked for 
peace (1898); but even now the frontier has not completely 
settled down, nor has a full military scheme for the occupation 
of the passes been worked out. 

In comparison with these troubles on the north-west frontier, 
those which have happened of late on the other flank of our 
D' n tes Indian Empire appear insignificant. They date 

with France from the occupation of Tonquin by France in 
as to Siam. j^S^ ; since then that power has made constant 
endeavours to extend itself across the Indo-Chinese peninsula, 
and to occupy Siam and the Shan States north of it. But in 
1896 a treaty was concluded, neutralizing what remains of 
Siam, and dividing the rest of the disputed regions into a 
British and French sphere of influence : since then there seems 
to have been a cessation of friction in this quarter. 

The political future of India still remains the greatest 

problem which lies before British statesmen. We have reduced 

the country to a state of unity and good organi- 

^ Results of i . , \ r ^ ^. 

British rule zation, such as it never knew before, under the 
— Material Moguls or any other power. We have covered 
it with railways and canals, broken up millions of 
acres of jungle, and irrigated hundreds of miles of desert. The 
famines which a century ago used to march unhindered over 
the land, and to sweep away tens of millions of victims, are 
now fought from their first appearance, and lead to compara- 
tively small loss of life, though in remote districts much 
misery must still prevail. In 1897, during the last great 
dearth, as many as four and a half million persons were receiv- 
ing government relief at the same time. We have given 
equal laws and justice to all ; we have abolished evil customs 



THE P^UTURE OF INDIA. 239 

of immemorial antiquity, such as suttee and thuggism ; we are 

doing our best to teach our subjects self-government, by giving 

the cities native municipalities and trying to interest our vassal 

princes in public works, sanitary and educational reform, and 

such-like Western ideas. 

On the material side, the work accomplished has been 

enormous and uniformly beneficial. In other respects, the 

results of our presence in India have not always 

been so encouraging : it is hard to root out the Attitude of 

V r J J J • the native 

ancient enmities 01 creed and race, and serious races— The 

riots show from time to time that the British problem of 

bayonet is still needed to keep the peace. The ^Q^t. 

cheap education which we have lavished upon our 

subjects has not always reached the directing classes, but has 

created a half-educated literary proletariate, whose energy too 

often finds vent in silly and seditious journalism. On the 

other hand, the old governing classes often complain that there 

is no career for them under our regime. Though financial 

legislation is framed to press as lightly as possible on the 

poverty-stricken masses, yet our rule cannot be called cheap 

according to Eastern ideas. But considering the difficulties 

with which we have to cope, the situation must be considered 

hopeful rather than the reverse. If the results of our energy in 

some directions have been disappointing, it is possible to point 

to plenty of cases where the influence of Western ideas on 

natives of all classes, from the highest downwards, have been 

admirable. But the problem of what Great Britain must do 

when the greater part of the leading classes have come under 

such influences and ask for further rights of self-government, is 

one which will not have to be settled by the present generation. 

" Indian National Congresses," and such-like meetings, to-day 

represent little or nothing : what they may represent fifty years 

hence, no man can say — but the future must take care for 

itself. 

Passing from India eastward in our survey of the empire 



240 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

we note that, in 1815, we had hardly any hold on the Indo- 
Chinese and Malay lands, merely owning a few 
The Straits , , , • o, ^ ■ 7 ^ r 

Settlements scattered harbours in Sumatra, the island of 

—Growth of Penang, and a small strip of coast in the Malay 
peninsula, called " Province Wellesley," from the 
great Governor-General, who acquired it in 1800. But, in 
1824, we exchanged Bantam and our other ports in Sumatra 
with the Dutch for the far more eligible colony of Malacca, 
dominating the straits through which all trade passes from 
India to China and Japan. To this was added the island 
of Singapore, ceded by a Malay rajah in the same year 1824. 
The moment that this possession came into our hands it 
began to develop in the most extraordinary way ; Singapore, 
which, when we received it, was a mere island of jungle, 
is now a town of 200,000 souls, and one of the greatest 
ports of the world. It has become a halfway house, not 
only for commerce passing from China eastward or westward, 
but also for all the trade of Australia and the Dutch East 
Indies. 

A similar greatness has come to Hong-Kong, which we 
seized in 1842 after the first Chinese w^ar; for fifty years 
it was the only spot in the further East under 
Growth of ^ civilized European Government, and, " trade 
following the flag," became the emporium of 
the greater part of the Chinese empire. The opening of other 
ports on the mainland, after the second Chinese war, took 
away its practical monopoly, but has had no effect whatever 
in diminishing the bulk of trade which passes through its 
harbour. The island-city has now 250,000 inhabitants, and 
is growing across the water on to the mainland, where further 
concessions of land have just been granted by the Chinese 
The oolicv Government. The efiect of the recent seizure 
of the ''open of ports further to the north by Germany and 
°°^* Russia, and of our own " lease " of Wei-Hei-Wai 

(1898), has still to be worked out. The only thing of which 



EARLY HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA. 241 

we can be certain is that the parcelling out of the Chinese 

coast into " spheres of influence," by powers which believe 

in strict protection, cannot be favourable to our own trade ; 

and that the more that the policy of the " open door " for all 

commerce in the Celestial empire is maintained, the better 

will it be for Great Britain. Monopoly in a part will not 

compensate us for losing the power of competition in the 

whole. 

Australia was in 1800 still very imperfectly known, though, 

as we have already had occasion to mention, an English 

convict settlement had been planted at Port ^ , 

Jackson some twelve years before. But even development 

down to 1802 its shape was so little known that of Australia. 

the great island of Tasmania was supposed to form part 

of it. As long as the region was nothing more than 

a place of punishment for those " who left their country for 

their country's good," it was not likely to develop fast or 

happily. But, after the peace of Vienna, the capacities of 

the vast plains of Eastern Australia began to be known ; no 

region so well suited for pastoral enterprises on the largest 

scale exists in all the world. Free settlers provided with 

some little capital began to drift in, and to plant their stations 

on the broad grassy upland of New South Wales, where sheep 

and cattle soon began to multiply at an astounding rate. 

But for a whole generation the unsavoury 

. ^ , . , . . Gradual 

convict element contmued to predommate, abolition of 

and to give the continent a bad name. Fortu- the convict 

nately the ameliorations of the English criminal 

law between 1820 and 1840, began to diminish the 

depth of the stream of ruffianism which was poured into 

Australia year by year, while the free colonists grew more 

numerous as the opening for the sheep farmer began to be 

realized. The feeling among them as to the further 

importation of convicts grew so strong, that the British 

Government diverted the main stream from New South 



242 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Wales (1840), to newer penal settlements in Tasmania and 
Western Australia. The system was not, however, finally 
abandoned in Tasmania till 1853, and in Western Australia 
till 1864, though in the last years of its existence the annual 
export of convicts had been very small. 

Down to the middle of the century it seemed likely that 
Australia would never develop into anything more than 

a thinly populated pastoral country, occupied 
eSd-Ields^ ^^ ^ community of "squatters," each owning a 

vast run of many thousand acres, and employing 
a few shepherds and cattle-men to tend his live stock. Wool, 
tallow, and hides, with a certain amount of timber, were 
practically the sole exports of the continent. But all was 
changed in 1848-51 by the discovery in Port Phillip, the 
southern region of New South Wales, of enormous deposits 
of alluvial gold, richer than anything known in the old world, 
and vying in wealth with those of California. There was 
of course an instant rush to the new gold-field, and the 
population of the Port Phillip district went up so rapidly that 
it was cut off from the parent colony, and formed into a 
separate community, under the name of Victoria, in 185 1. It 
has ever since remained one of the chief gold-producing 
centres of the world, and more than ;,r25o, 000,000 worth of 
the precious metal has been extracted from its mines. More 
than ^,{^4, 000, 000 worth a year is still exported, though the 
easy surface deposits have long been exhausted, and all 
the metal has to be crushed by machinery from the solid 
quartz reef. Some time after the Victorian gold-field was 
developed, similar fields of smaller extent and lesser richness 
were found to exist in other parts of the continent. New 
South Wales, and the younger colony of Queensland (created 
in 1859), have both an important output, and quite lately 
(1886), similar deposits have been discovered in Western 
Australia, which was till that date the most belated and 
thinly peopled of the colonies of Australia. 



AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. 243 

The gold discoveries led to a great increase of the town-dwell- 
ing as opposed to the pastoral population of the colonies. They 
also led to a great influx of population over and 

above that actually engaged in the mining in- towns The 

dustry. The growth of a class of small farmers farmers and 
led to a long-protracted struggle between them 
and the " squatters " who had previously had a monopoly of 
the land. The latter held their enormous pasture-runs by long 
leases from the Crown, which they desired to render perpetual. 
Their opponents wished to cut up these vast estates, in order 
that arable farms might be carved out of such parts of them as 
are suited to the plough. Since the introduction of representa- 
tive government in Australia, in 1850-51, the tendency has, 
of course, been to place power in the hands of the majority, 
and to deprive the squatters of their ancient ascendency. But 
there are many parts of the continent where 
pasturage must always be predominant ; great Questio^ ^^^ 
tracts of the interior are so ill provided with water 
that they must always be unfitted for arable cultivation. In 
the northern part of the continent, including the greater part 
of the colony of Queensland, the climate is so hot that it is 
unsuited for field work by Europeans. Such regions naturally 
become sugar or rice plantations, which have to be worked by 
the imported labour of Chinese or " Kanakas " (natives of the 
South Sea Islands). But the Australian proletariate show great 
jealousy of such foreign labour, and would apparently prefer 
that the sub-tropical parts of the continent should be un- 
developed, rather than that a large coloured population should 
grow up in them. Two of the characteristic 
features of extreme democracy in a new country leeSlSon*^ 
have been very well marked in some of the 
Australian colonies, — the tendency towards strict forms of pro- 
tection in commerce, and the desire to thrust all duties and 
responsibilities on the Government till State socialism is almost 
in viev/. Legislation to prevent the accumulation of large 



244 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

properties, by heavy progressive taxation, has also been heard 
of- Victoria has always been in the van in such democratic 
ideas, while New South Wales has shown itself more cautious. 

At present the main topic in the whole group of Australian 
colonies is the dispute about Federation ; all the six colonies 
_, ,. now existing* are in theory favourable to it, 

of Federa- but sectional interests, of course, exist to make 
^^°"* the carrying out of the scheme difficult. The 

jealousy between the two capital cities of New South Wales 
and Victoria — Sydney and Melbourne — necessitates the selec- 
tion of some secondary town as the centre of federal govern- 
ment. There is also enough difference in the domestic policy 
of several of the colonies to make an agreement difficult, but 
that it will be ere long arrived at cannot be doubted, and is in 
every way desirable. When accomplished, it will be a step 
towards the solution of the larger problem of Imperial Federa- 
tion. Australia has shown no indisposition to take her part in 
the defence of the empire; the colonies already maintain in 
common a small navy known as the " Auxiliary Squadron," 
and in 1885 New South Wales contributed a military contingent 
to one of the Soudan expeditions. 

To the east of Australia lies the colony of New Zealand, 

consisting of two large and one small island placed far out in 

the Pacific, some twelve hundred miles from the 
New 
Zealand— nearest point of New South Wales. Colonization 

The Maoris. ^iQ^e only began in the reign of Victoria, the first 
emigrants arriving in 1839. The history of New Zealand has 
been very different from that of the Australian continent, 
owing to the existence of a large and energetic native popula- 
tion. ■ The aborigines of Australia, a few thousands scattered 
over a vast continent, were among the lowest and most 
barbarous of mankind. The Maori tribes of New Zealand, on 

New South Wales (dating from 1788) originally included all the 
Australian colonies. Out of it weie cut Tasmania in 1825, West Australia 
in 1829, South Australia in 1836, \'icloria in 1S51, and (^)ucensland in 1839. 



NEW ZEALAND. 245 

the Other hand, were a fierce and intelligent race, given to the 
horrid practice of cannibalism, but in other respects by no 
means an unpromising people. They were ready and able to 
defend themselves, when they considered their rights had been 
infringed, and since the first settlement there have been three 
wars (1843-47, 1863-64, 1869-70), in which the Maoris dis- 
played great courage, and considerable skill in fortification. 
Regular troops in large force had to be employed to evict 
them from their stockaded " Pahs^ Of late years a better 
modus Vivendi has been found, and they seem contented with 
their large reservations of land, their subsidies from Govern- 
ment, and the four seats which have been given them in the 
New Zealand Parliament. 

The islands were, at their first colonization, organized as six 
provinces, each with a separate government, and were not 
united into a thoroughly centralized union till 1875. Their 
general character differs from that of Australia, as they are far 
more broken up by mountains, better watered, and much more 
temperate in climate : in the Southern island snow not un- 
frequently falls. There are large pastoral districts and grassy 
plains, which supply the frozen meat now so common in 
English markets, but also considerable mining regions and 
large forest tracts. New Zealand was never dominated by 
the " squatter " aristocracy which once ruled Australia, but has 
always been in the hands of the smaller farmers. It is in 
sentiment the most democratic of all the Australasian colonies, 
and has gone further even than Victoria on the road towards 
placing all social enterprise, industry, and commerce under 
State control. 

In the Western Pacific Great Britain was, for the first three 
quarters of the century, content to possess the larger part of 
the trade of the numerous groups of islands, France and the 
United States having much smaller interests. But the French 
annexations in Tahiti and New Caledonia, and the later 
appearance of the Germans in New Guinea, led to our setting 



246 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

our mark on a good many of these coral archipelagos. The 

Fiji Isles was our first annexation (1874) ; Southern 
Other '^tiw Guinea was annexed in 1884, to cover the 

possessions northern flank of Australia. At various later 
p .^ days the Cook, Solomon, Ellice, and Santa Cruz 

groups have been taken over. A complete list 
of our possessions in this quarter would show many other 
unfamiliar names ; none of them are of any great size or any 
high importance. The main reason of their occupation has 
always been the activity of our encroaching neighbours, and not 
our own desire for more coral reefs and atolls. It will be 
curious to note the ultimate fate of Samoa, where British, 
American, and German interests are all now involved, and are 
very difficult to reconcile. 

Our North American colonies have a very different history 
from those of Australasia. In that continent no annexations 

have been made nor frontiers moved since 181 5, 
ArrferYcan^ though there has been trouble with the United 
colonies— States on three separate occasions as to the exact 
The Oregon interpretation of old boundaries, where definitions 

were placed on paper before exact geographical 
knowledge was available. The most important of them was 
the "Oregon question" of 1846, when the delimitation of the 
English and American possessions on the Pacific coast was 
carried out, by the simple expedient of drawing a line along the 
forty-ninth degree of latitude, from the Lake of the Woods to 
the Pacific. All natural boundaries were thus overruled in the 
most arbitrary way, but a fair compromise was on the whole 
obtained. 

The internal history of these colonies has been far more 
interesting than that of most of our possessions. In 181 5 
State of the Canada had just escaped the imminent danger of 
colonies in being overrun by the armies of the United States. 
1815. rpj^g splendid valour and loyalty of her militia had 

aided the small British garrison to fling back three invasions, 



HISTORY OF CANADA. 247 

and the peace of Ghent had restored the condition of affairs 
which had prevailed before the war. Our possessions consisted 
of six separate colonies, each administered as a separate unit — 
Upper and Lower Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, as well as of the vast 
and desolate Northern and North- Western territories extending 
to the Pacific, which were then in the hands of the Hudson's 
Bay Company. Lower Canada, an entirely French-speaking 
and Catholic province, the remains of the old French colony 
of " New France " was still by far the most important member 
of the group. The other settlements, the base of whose 
population was composed of the exiled loyalists who left the 
United States in 1783 to seek new homes, were still in their 
infancy; in Upper Canada the inhabited zone extended no 
further west than Kingston and Toronto. Each province was 
governed by a ministry (" Executive Council "), and a Legis- 
lative Council of Crown nominees, with a Representative 
Assembly elected by the people. 

As the colonies developed, friction began to grow up between 
the non-representative ministry and Upper House on the one 
side, and the elective assembly on the other. 
The people naturally wished to have a greater tional friction 
control over the executive than had been granted — Papineau's 
in a constitution drawn up in the eighteenth 
century before the growth of free colonies was understood. 
The trouble was worst in Lower Canada, where the barrier 
of language and national sentiment existed between the 
Government and the French population of the province. 
Led on by Papineau and other demagogues, the French 
Canadians burst out into open rebellion in 1836-37. But 
they met no assistance from the English colonists, and were 
suppressed without much difficulty by the troops and loyalist 
volunteers. Their numerous sympathizers in the United States 
were disappointed to see the rising collapse, and the republican 
propaganda disappear. 



248 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The Home Government, however, was wise enough to see 
that the rebelUon in Lower Canada had a real grievance beneath 
J . it, and sent out Lord Durham to America, in 1838, 

Durham's to report on the advisabiUty of changes in the 
reforms. form of administration. In accordance with his 

advice, the whole constitution was recast in 1840. The two 
provinces of Lower and Upper Canada were united, so as to 
deprive the discontented French party of their separate 
political existence. A single parliament was instituted for their 
governance, consisting of a small upper house, or " Legislative 
Council," of life members, and a larger lower house chosen 
every four years by the electors. The lower house obtained a 
practical control over taxation and the choice of ministers 
which it had not previously possessed. Similar modifications 
were carried out in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which 
provinces Lord Durham had wished to incorporate with 
Canada, but this scheme was only accomplished a quarter of 
a century after his death. 

Since the reforms of 1840, there has been absolutely no 
constitutional trouble of any importance in Canada or the 
small sister-colonies. The only military incidents that they 
have seen were the repulse of the Fenian invasions of 1866 
and 1867,* and the suppression of the rebellions of the Indian 
half-breeds of the North-West Territory in 1870 and 1884. Both 
operations were accomplished entirely by the colonial militia. 
The advance of all the North American colonies has been 
steady and increasing ; wealth has been found in the enormous 
forests of the north and the rich prairie land of the west. The 
limit of population has been moving steadily towards the Pacific, 
on whose shores two new settlements, Vancouver Island and 
British Columbia, were incorporated in 1858 ; while in the older 
lands. Upper Canada, the English-speaking province of Ontario, 
has quite superseded Lower Canada, the French-speaking 
province of Quebec, as the premier colony. 

* See p. 160. 



THE "DOMINION OF CANADA. '\ 249 

^ The progress of British North America was greatly assisted 
by the federation of the colonies, carried out between 1867 and 
1873. The two Canadas, New Brunswick, and ^, 
Nova Scotia formed themselves into the new "Dominion" 
" Dominion of Canada " in the first-named year ; ° v.ana a. 
the North-Western Territory, once the property of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, joined them in 1870, British Columbia in 187 1, 
and Prince Edward Island in 1873. The remote fishing colony 
of Newfoundland has preferred not to cast in its lot with the 
rest, though in its dealings with its aggressive French neigh- 
bours * it would be greatly helped by being able to speak with 
the same voice as its greater sisters. The " Dominion " is 
now a federal government, with a governor-general, a Senate 
appointed for life, and a House of Representatives. The 
individual provinces still retain for local purposes their 
provincial assemblies, and enjoy complete home rule under 
the central government. 

Since the federation, the most important landmark in the 
history of the colonies is undoubtedly the building of the 

Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and ^, 

The 
1885. Since it was finished, the development of Canadian- 
Manitoba and the other regions of the " Great Pacific 
Lone Land" has been very rapid. Nine new 
provinces now exist in this once uninhabited region, with a 
rapidly growing population of over 300,000 souls. They are 
mainly devoted to ranching and corn-growing, unlike the 
districts further east, where the lumber trade is still the great 
industry. The Canadian Pacific has an imperial as well as a 
colonial importance, since it provides a quick route to the 
extreme east, passing entirely through British territory. About 
1 1 00 miles is saved in passing from Liverpool to Japan or 
Northern China, if the route by Halifax, Montreal, and 
Vancouver is taken rather than that by the Suez Canal and 
Singapore. 

• See p. 219. 



250 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Very different from the fate of Canada has been that of our 

other great group of possessions in America — that formed by 

the West India Islands and British Guiana. In 
The West 
Indies and ^^e early part of the century, their sugar and 

British coffee plantations, worked by slave labour, and 

exposed to no foreign competition, while pro- 
tection was still in vogue, supplied the whole British Empire 
and brought untold wealth to the planters. The first great 
blow to them was the abolition of the slave trade in 1832; 
the free black labour was never so regular or efficient as that 
which prevailed under the unhappy old system. But Free 
Trade proved an even deadlier foe to these once flourishing 
islands ; the cheap beet sugar of Germany and France, unfairly 
fostered by government bounties, has underbid West Indian 
sugar in our markets for many years. An entire collapse in 
their trade has taken place, and, though attempts have been 
made to replace the ruined industry by developing the cultiva- 
tion of tobacco, cocoa, and fruits, they have not been fully 
successful, and our West Indian possessions are in a far less 
happy position than any other part of the empire. 

We have still to deal with one great section of our colonial 
possessions — those situate in Africa. In 181 5 we held no more 
Th Af ' i^^^^^ scattered ports along the shores of Guinea, 

colonies in at the mouth of the Gambia, in Sierra Leone, and 
^°^5' on the Gold Coast, together with the new 

acquisitions of Cape Colony, taken from the Dutch, and 
Mauritius, annexed from France, by the Treaty of Vienna. 
The stations on the Guinea coast were no more than harbours, 
occupied, in spite of their deadly climate, in order to serve as 
debouches for the very profitable trade of the valley of the 
Niger. Mauritius was a tropical colony of the same sort as 
Ceylon or Malacca, profitable both from its sugar plantations 
and from its position as a port of call on the way to India. 
But Cape Colony had much greater possibilities before it, 
being capable of illimitable extension to the north over 



EARLY TROUBLES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 251 

thousands of miles suitable for either cattle-breeding or corn- 
growing. Its position only differed from that of Australia in 
that the settlers were confronted with a large and warlike 
population of Kaffirs, who showed no signs of dying out before 
the advent of the white man, like the Australian natives. 

The original settlement round Cape Town was and has 
always remained Dutch, but from 181 5 onward English 

settlers kept pouring into the eastern part of the 

1 1 ^1 1^1 J • The British 

colony, where they are completely predommant. Government 

A greater or less amount of friction has always and the 
existed between the British Government and 
the Dutch "Boers"; in 1836 a great body of these settlers 
pushed northward in order to set up independent states on the 
Orange river and in Natal. But they were followed up by 
the power which they detested, and both of their new com- 
munities were annexed. A second migration, or " trek," of 
the Boers then took place across the Vaal river, where they 
founded the " Transvaal," or " South African Republic." This 
was also seized for a moment by the British, but in 1852-54 we 
evacuated both it and the Orange river district, which once 
more organized themselves as independent states. Natal, 
however, has always remained a British colony, and the Dutch 
element there has for a long time not been predominant. 

The curse of the South African colonies from their first 
foundation has been the incessant breaking out of Kaffir wars; 
since 181 5 there have been at least a score of 
them. The most important was the Zulu war wars— 
of 1879; a series of kings of genius had built Subjection of 
up a military organization of great efficiency, by 
which the Zulus made themselves masters of all the neighbour- 
ing tribes. The attitude of their ruler, Cetewayo, seemed so 
threatening that Sir Bartle Frere declared war on him and 
invaded his dominions. But the Zulus vindicated their warlike 
reputation by falling upon and annihilating a whole British 
regiment and several thousand native allies at the surprise of 



252 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Isandula. It was not till large reinforcements, under Sir 
Garnet Wolseley, had been hurried out from England, that 
Cetewayo's power was destroyed at the 'battle of Ulundi, and 
his realm passed under British suzerainty. 

Shortly before the Zulu war (1877) we annexed the Transvaal 
republic, where the Boer settlers seemed in danger of being 
exterminated by their black neighbours, and a 
^^^_yhe state of anarchy was setting in. The Dutch pro- 
Transvaal tested at the time, but not much attention was 
independent. ^^.^ ^^ ^^^^^ complaints till, in 1880, after the 

Zulus had been destroyed and the Gladstone cabinet had 
susperseded that of Lord Beaconsfield, they suddenly rose in 
arms, and destroyed or besieged the small British garrisons 
which occupied the country. Troops hurried up from Natal 
and the Cape were checked at the combats at Laing's Neck 
and the Ino-ogo river ; but the worst disgrace was not suffered 
till the fight at Majuba Hill (February 27, 1881), where the 
British were thrust out of the strong position they had taken, 
with heavy loss, including that of their commander. Sir Pomeroy 
CoUey. Mr. Gladstone thereupon made peace with the Boers, 
granting them their independence under a very light and 
nominal admission of vassalage to Great Britain. 

Since then rich gold-mines have been discovered in the 
Transvaal, to which thousands of British subjects have flocked ; 

their centre is Johannesburg, now a town of a 
g-old— D? ° hundred thousand souls. The Boer government 
Jameson's has always been carried on in a most narrow- 

minded and retrograde spirit ; nearly all political 
rights are refused to the " Uitlander " settlers by the Dutch 
farmers, who now form a decided minority in the land which 
they are themselves unable or unwilling to develop. Constant 
chafing against this misrule finally led to a conspiracy on the part 
of the immigrants, and in December, 1895, there was a rising 
at Johannesburg, to aid which Dr. Jameson, then a high official 
of the British South African Company, made a most unwise 



JAMESON'S RAID. 253 

and unjustifiable incursion into the Transvaal at the head of 
five hundred of his mounted police. They were defeated, 
surrounded, and captured en masse by the Boers, whereupon 
the Johannesburgers laid dovv^n their arms. Dr. Jameson's 
escapade not only brought us into trouble with Germany,* but 
made our relations with the Transvaal far more difficult than 
before, as President Kriiger not unnaturally persisted in believ- 
ing that the British authorities in South Africa, if not the Colonial 
Office in London also, were at the back of Jameson's raid. 

Since then affairs in the Transvaal have always been in the 
most strained condition, and difficulties may at any moment 
break out. The most deplorable part of the 

" Raid " has been that it has embittered the feel- Continued 

friction 
ings between the Dutch and English inhabitants between 

of South Africa, which had been slowly improving S°5/^ j" 

since the Boer war of 1880. It has also deferred 

for many years the project of a South African confederation, 

after the manner of that which has been so successful in 

Canada \ as long as the present relations prevail between the 

two races, nothing can be done. 

The South African colonies, however, have other foreign 

politics beside those which concern the two Boer republics. 

Down to 1884 we were the only European power 

possessino^ a lodgement in the southern end of the ^^J^f"^ .. 
^ ^ * colonization 

" Dark Continent," save for the decaying Portu- and the 
guese colonies of Angola and Mozambique. A scramble for 
slow and peaceful extension of Cape Colony 
northward seemed the natural line of development. In 1871 
we annexed Griqualand West, where rich diamond mines had 
just been discovered, and the town of Kimberley was growing 
up. A little later Basutoland and other inland districts were 
taken under our protection. But in 1884 Prince Bismarck, 
then still at the height of his power, proclaimed a German 
Protectorate over Damaraland, the coast district north of the 

* See p. 204. 



254 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Orange River, while in 1885-90 similar claims were set up by 
Germany to the maritime tract on the eastern side of Africa 
north of Mozambique. This intrusion of a new colonial power 
into regions which we had fondly marked out as likely to pass 




10 W.ot Gr. E.ofGr. 10 



into our own hands, forced England to take action, and the 
" scramble for Africa " began. 

The danger was that the Germans pushing inland from 
both sides of the continent, might meet in the valley of the 



THE "SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA." 255 

Zambezi, and shut out our colonies from further expansion 

northward. Hence came about the establishment ... 

of the two great Chartered Companies. . The South 

" South Africa Company," incorporated in 1889, African 

Company — 
of which Mr. Cecil Rhodes has always been the Policy of 

leading spirit, seized Matabeleland and Mashona- J?/- 9®^^^ 

.,,,,-, Rhodes. 

land after a short war with the Matabeles, a 

warlike Zulu race who were formerly dominant in the regions 

inland from the Transvaal and Mozambique. The " Central 

Africa Company " operated further to the north, and occupied 

the regions beyond the Zambezi and to the west of the great 

lake Nyassa. Their sphere of influence was put under formal 

British protection in 1891. Thus the southern end of Mr. 

Rhodes's great "Cape Town to Cairo" scheme was successfully 

put beyond the danger of German or Portuguese interference. 

Other complications, however, arose further northward in 

tlie region about Zanzibar — an Arab state with a large 

undefined dominion on the mainland opposite . . 

Britain and 
the island capital of the Sultan. The German an- Germany in 

nexations about Vitu and Dar-es-Salaam (1 885-90) East Central 

devoured a great part of his nominal empire ; 

Mombasa and the rest were leased to a third British Chartered 

Company — the " East Africa Company," founded in 1888. 

Zanzibar itself was placed under British protection in 1890, 

and an elaborate treaty with Germany delimited the spheres of 

the two powers, the line being drawn at the river Umba. 

The " East Africa Company " ceded its rights to the British 

Government in 1895, so that this territory is now held directly 

under the Crown. This protectorate extends all along the 

east coast of Africa, from Mombasa to the river Juba, where it 

touches on the north a sphere of Italian influence, reaching up 

to the mouth of the Red Sea. Beyond this lies another patch 

of British territory in Somaliland, facing Aden across the straits 

of Bab-el-Mandeb, and so guarding the way to Suez. 

One further annexation has been made in East Africa, as 



256 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

late as 1894. In that year we assumed a protectorate over the 
inland kingdom of Uganda and the neighbouring 
* regions. British missionary enterprise had for 

many years been very vigorous in this direction, and our atten- 
tion had been called to it by the cruel persecutions of Christians 
carried out by Mtesa and his son Mwanga, the despot who 
murdered Bishop Hannington and his companions in 1888. 
The Uganda protectorate lies about the two great lakes of the 
Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and the headwaters of the Nile. 
Expeditions are at the present moment on the march to push 
northward from this region and connect our dominions with 
the middle Nile, where the British and Egyptian flags are 
floating at Fashoda. If it had not been for long civil wars in 
Uganda, this task would have been ere now completed. But 
the necessity for putting down Mwanga and his partisans was 
followed by that for subduing a revolt of our own Soudanese 
mercenaries, and three years have been lost. Meanwhile a 
railway is being rapidly pushed up from Mombasa to connect 
our inland protectorate with our head-quarters at Zanzibar, a 
task that will probably be completed before the century is out. 
The programme sketched out by Mr. Rhodes, of drawing a 

_, ^ continuous chain of British protectorates from 

The ** O3.De 

Town to Cape Colony to the Nile valley, has thus been 

Cairo " completed except at one point. Beyond the north 

end of Lake Nyassa, German East Africa touches 
the Belgian " Congo Free State," and until a right of transit is 
acquired through one or the other of those territories, the 
" Capfe Town to Cairo " route cannot be practically used. It 
is probable that some arrangement will ultimately be made 
by which this difficulty can be got rid of. 

In Western Africa the power with which we have had most 
of our difficulties is not Germany, but France. Down to 
the third quarter of the century we conducted well-nigh the 
whole trade of this part of the continent, through our settle- 
ments of the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and 



DISPUTES WITH FRANCE IN AFRICA. 257 

Lagos. The region was too unhealthy to tempt us to attempt 

inland conquest, and after several expeditions to 

chastise the coast tribes, notably the Ashantees, ^ • 

we always withdrew to our ports again. But colonies — 

expansion inland has been forced upon us by ^^ictionwith 

^ . . France, 

the French, who, starting from their colonies of 

Senegal and the Ivory Coast, have conquered the inland of 
Guinea, or the " French Soudan," as they now call it, so as to 
cut off our Gambia and Sierra Leone settlements from their 
" hinterland." To prevent Lagos from being treated in the 
same way, and to keep the whole basin of the Lower Niger free 
for English trade, the " Royal Niger Company " was organized 
in 1885, and the coast from Lagos eastward as far as the 
Cameruns was taken under British protection. The Niger 
company has worked up the great stream, till its officials met 
the French descending it from the neighbourhood of Timbuctu. 
The expected collision occurred at several points, and led to 
great diplomatic difficulties, which were ultimately settled only 
in 1898, by a treaty which gave the lands on the Middle Niger 
to France, and those from Say to the sea, along the Lower 
Niger, to England. This solid block of territory exploited by 
the Niger Company is cut off from any possibility of expansion 
eastward by the activity of the Germans in the Cameruns and 
the French on the Ubangi. The territories claimed by those 
powers now completely surround our Niger protectorate. 

One further boundary in Africa remained to be settled — that 
between France and England in the regions where the basins 
of the Congo and the Nile meet. We have already had to 
describe the Marchand * expedition to Fashoda and its con- 
sequences. The last of them has been the final delimitation 
of the French and English spheres of influence in that de- 
batable land. By an agreement reached in March, 1899, 
we have taken over, for ourselves, or our Egyptian protegees^ 
Darfur, Kordofan, and the Bahr-el-Gazal j while France 

* See p. 208. 



258 ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

is to be permitted to conquer Kanem Wadai and Baghirmi, 
when she can succeed in pushing troops into those remote 
regions. 

Thus the "scramble for Africa" has ended in the annexa- 
tion, real or nominal, of the whole continent by one European 
power or another. Except some desert tracts in the Eastern 
Sahara, south of Tripoli, there is no region which is not claimed 
by one of the great colonizing states. The boundaries now 
settled, however, are in many cases so unnatural, that their 
modification is certain to be one of the main employments 
of the twentieth century. 

It remains to add a few words about a topic which for the 
last ten years has been in every mouth — Imperial Federation. 
The oroblem ^^ ^^^ present moment the Crown is the only 
of Imperial formal tie between the many colonies and pos- 
Federation. sessions over which the Union Jack floats. But 
racial patriotism and the memories of a great past tell in 
favour of federation in the majority of the colonies, no less 
than in the mother-country. A firm and well-compacted union 
of all the British lands would form a state that might control 
the whole world. 

But if sentiment is all in favour of Imperial Federation, there 
are many practical difficulties in its way. Supposing that the 
Constitu- union were accomplished, and a Federal Parlia- 
tional ment of the whole British world assembled, would 

cu ties. ^YiQ mother-country allow herself to be outvoted 
and her policy changed by a combination of her daughter- 
states ? On the other hand, would Canada be prepared to 
enter into a war for purely Australian interests, or South African 
colonists vote money freely for a struggle to keep the " open 
door" in China? It is extremely possible that such doubts 
would prove to be unnecessary, and that in the spirit of mutual 
dependence every member of the Federation would make its 
sister's quarrels its own. The example of the United States, 
whose foreign policy has seldom been handicapped by internal 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 259 

differences of opinion between the various states, is there to 
comfort us. A much more serious objection turns upon the 
matter of Free Trade and Protection. 

All British commercial policy since the days of Peel has been 
conducted on free-trade lines ; they undoubtedly suit a great 
manufacturing country, which at the same time 
owns the carrying trade of half the world. On the dl^Sues?^ 
other hand, many of the colonies are furiously 
protectionist in sentiment, and tax the goods of the mother- 
country no less than those of the foreigner. Federation would 
certainly be followed by a commercial union, by which the 
colonies would undertake to give the products of Britain a 
preferential tariff. Canada set the example in the excellent 
agreement made in 1898. But in return they would be almost 
certain to ask that Britain should abandon her hard-and-fast 
line of Free Trade, and impose duties on foreign goods, so as 
to give her daughter-states an advantage over the alien. It is 
probable that Great Britain might ultimately consent to go 
some way in this direction, seeing the enormous political 
benefits that would ensue. But it would certainly be a great 
wrench to her to reverse the commercial policy of fifty years, 
and to revert to ideas that have been long discredited. 

India supplies a third set of difficulties in the way of federa- 
tion. It is hard to see how she can be fitted into 
the scheme. No doubt the colonies might be difficult ^^" 
given their fair share in her administration, as 
long as the present condition of affairs continues. But if India 
is ever trusted with a greater measure of self-government than 
she at present enjoys, it is clear that her 250,000,000 inhabitants 
would weigh very heavily in the federation. If taken into 
partnership, she would swamp the rest of the empire. 

In spite of all such difficulties — and there are dozens more 
which might be urged, turning on various financial, military, 
and administrative points — there seems to be no really insuper- 
able barrier to the carrying out of the great scheme. The 



26o ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

examples of the Canadian federation, which has worked so well 
for thirty years, and of the Australian federation, 
Federation^ ^vhich is just being accomplished, are decidedly 
encouraging for the larger scheme. The matter 
must, to a very large extent, be settled by sentiment ; to thrust 
union on recalcitrant members would be fatal. But in most 
parts of the colonial world the sentiment is tending in the 
required direction, and " where there is a will there is a way." 
The progress towards federation must inevitably be slow, and 
preceded by many half-measures and partial agreements. 
These are, indeed, already coming into existence ; facts like the 
Australian " auxiliary squadron ", the South African money 
contribution to the imperial navy, the commercial treaty with 
Canada in 1898, the lately concluded inter-colonial agreements 
between Canada and Australia, and Canada and the West 
Indies, are all steps toward the great end. Most important of 
all, perhaps, is the ever-growing rapidity of communications by 
sea and land ; the barriers of distance are the most formidable 
hindrances to union, but they are being quickly removed. An 
achievement like the Canadian-Pacific Railway not merely 
develops a new province, but helps to bind the whole empire 
together. British Columbia is, for all practical purposes, as 
near to London now as Malta was in 18 15. As communica- 
tions grow easier, the consciousness of common origin and 
interests must grow stronger, and the inter-dependence of the 
mother country and the colonies be better realized by both 
parties. Mutual ignorance was really the reason why, earlier 
in the century, Great Britain sometimes seemed an un- 
sympathetic parent, or her colonists discontented children. 
We are now long past the time when Canada and Australia 
seemed so far ofi" and so unimportant that English statesmen 
talked lightly of the day when they would, in the natural course 
of things, " cut the painter," and leave Great Britain alone as a 
small manufacturing island in the North Atlantic. What 
difficulties there are, will now proceed more from the local 



IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 261 

patriotisms and jealousies of the colonies than from the 
impracticability of the mother country. They must not be 
undervalued ; it is conceivable even yet that the great English- 
speaking peoples may drift asunder, and be forced to play a 
secondary part in the development of the twentieth century. 
If, as we confidently hope, they hold together and combine in 
some more or less definite federal scheme, the future of the 
whole world lies in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race. 



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264 



APPENDIX. 



POPULATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 





England and 
Wales. 


Scotland. 


Ireland.* 


Total. 


I80I 


8,892,536 


1,608,402 


5.319,867 (?) 


15,720,805 


I8II 


10,164,256 


1,805,864 


6,000,000 (?) 


17,970,120 


I82I 


12,000,236 


2,091,521 


6,801,827 


20,893,584 


I83I .. 


. 13.896,797 


2,364,386 


7,767,401 


24,048,584 


I84I 


15,914,148 


2,620,184 


8,175,124 


26,709,456 


I85I 


17,927,609 


2,880,742 


6-552,385 


27,368,736 


I86I 


20,066,224 


3,062,294 


5,798,967 


28,927,485 


I87I 


22,712,266 


3,360,018 


5,412,377 


31,484,661 


I88I .., 


25974,439 


3>735>573 


5,174,836 


34,884,848 


IS9X 


29,002,525 


4,025,647 


4,704,750 


37,732,922 




• No accurate Irish 


figures can be 


given for 1801 or iS 


[I. 



THE NATIONAL DEBT. 

In 1 792, at commencement of French Revolutionary War 

In 1802, at Peace of Amiens ... 

In 181 5, after Waterloo ... ... ... 

In 1837, at accession of Victoria ... ... 

In 1854, before Crimean War ... ... ... 

In 1857, at end of Crimean War ... ... 

In 1898 ... .M ••• ••• ••• 



239,663,421 
537,653,008 
861,039,049 
761,422,570 
769,082,549 
808,108,722 
644,909,847 



APPENDIX. 



265 



FOREIGN SOVEREIGNS OF THE NINETEENTH 

CENTURY. 



Bonaparte, " First Consul" 
Bonaparte as Emperor 
Napoleon I. 

Louis XVIII 

Napoleon restored March- 
Louis XVIIL restored ... 
Charles X. ... 

Louis Philippe 

Second Republic 



Paul 

Alexander I. 
Nicholas I. .. 



FRANCE. 








1799- I 804 


Napoleon III. 


••• 


••• 


1852-1870 




Third Republic 


... 


Sept. 4, 1870 


1804-1814 


A. Thiers, 


President 


187I-1873 


1814-1815 


Marshal Mac-Mahon 




1873-1879 


—June 1815 


J. Grevy 






1879-1887 


1815-1824 


M. F. Carnot 






1887-1894 


1824-1830 


J. Casimir Perrier 




1894-1895 


1830-1848 


Felix Faure 






1895-1899 


1848-1832 


C. Loubet 




M 


1899- 


RUSSIA. 








1796-1801 


Alexander II. 


•«. 


... 


I855-188I 


1801-1825 


Alexander III. 


... 


• •• 


I881-1894 


1825-1855 


Nicholas II. 


••• 


• •• 


1894- 



PRUSSIA-GERMANY. 



Fredericlc-William III. ... 1797- 1840 

Frederick-William IV. ... 1840-1860 

William 1 1860-1888 

Elected German Emperor 1871 



Frederick, Emperor 
William II., Emperor 



x888 



1888- 



AUSTRIA. 



Francis II., " Holy Roman 

Emperor" 1792-1805 

Francis II., Emperor of 



Austria 



1805-1835 



Ferdinand 

Francis-Joseph ,^ 



1835-1848 
1848- 



SPAIN. 

1788-1808 



Charles IV. 
Ferdinand VII. (dejure) ) p o o 
Joseph Bonaparte (i/t^/rtr/^) ) 
Ferdinand Vn. restored... 1814-1833 
Isabella 1833-1868 



First Republic ,,, 
Amadeus of Savoy 

Second Republic ... 
Alphonso XIL ... 
Alphonso XIII. ... 



... 1868-1870 

... 1870-1873 

... 1873-1875 

... 1875-1885 

... 1886- 



266 



APPENDIX. 



TYPICAL BUDGETS. 



BUDGET OF 1801-2, LAST OF THE 
REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 



Income. 

Customs 

Excise 

Irish receipts (customs 
and excise not yet 
amalgamated with 
British) 

Stamps 

Land and assessed 
taxes 

Income tax ... 

Post-office 

Loans... 

Miscellaneous 



I 

8,758,184 
11,573.427 



2,350,509 
3,249,122 

4,648,078 

5.804,515 
1,250,725 

36,145,059 

1,461,509 



Expenditure, 

x» 

National debt and 

sinking fund ... 25,346,689 

Navy 17,258,135 

Army and ordnance 20,084,813 

Civil list and civil ser- 
vices 3,615,386 

Miscellaneous ... Ii>i77>9i7 



Total ... ;^75,24i,i28 Total ... ;^77,482,940 

A ruinous budget; besides the ^^36, 145,059 raised by issuing new 
Government stock, the greater part of the ;^i 1,1 77,917 "miscellaneous "in 
the expenditure column is to be accounted for by the paying off of an 
adverse balance of exchequer bills from 1801. There still remains a deficit 
of two millions ! There are no loans to foreign powers, as Austria has 
withdrawn from the war. 



BUDGET OF 1810. NAPOLEONIC WAR IN PROGRESS. 



Income. 



Customs 
Excise 
Stamps 
Land and 

taxes 
Income tax ., 
Post-office 
Loans ... 
Miscellaneous 



assessed 



£ 
13,816,218 

25,350,990 
5,546,082 

8,011,205 

13,492,215 
1,471,746 

15,690,826 
1,968,618 



Expenditure, 


£ 


National debt and 


sinking fund 
Navy ... 

Army and ordnance ... 
Civil list and civil 


33,433,828 
20,058,412 
23,188,631 


services 
Loans to foreign 


1,533.140 


powers 
Miscellaneous 


2,050,082 
5.079,547 



Total ... 85,347,900 Total ... 85,343,640 

The amount borrowed by loan this year, and that lent to foreign powers, 
are both below the average. 



APPENDIX 



267 



BUDGET OF 1820. AFTER THE GREAT PEACE. 



Income. 




Expenditure, 






£ 




I 


Custom* 


11,475,259 


National debt and 




Excise 


28,941,629 


sinking fund 


49,339,773 


Stamps 


6,853,986 


Navy ... 


5,943,879 


Land and assessjd 




Army and ordnance... 


10,281,702 


taxes 


8,192,301 


Civil list and civil 




Post-ofifice 


\,(i2\,Ty2(i 


services 


2,268,940 


Borrowed from the 




Loans to foreign 




sinking fund 


13,833.783 


powers 


48,464 


Miscellaneous 


1,867,308 


Miscellaneous ... 


4,479,992 



Total 



72,785,592 



Total 



72,362,750 



The customs dues have been cut down, the income tax abolished, the 
expenditure on army and navy halved. The burden of the national debt 
remains enormous. The cross-entries in both columns as to the sinking 
fund should be regarded as cancelling each other. 



SIR ROBERT PEEL'S LAST BUDGET, 1846. 



Income, 




Expenditure. 






£ 




/ 


Customs 


22,612,708 


Interest on national 




Excise 


15,563,084 


debt, etc. ... 


27,656,555 


Stamps 


7,895,628 


Navy ... 


7,803,464 


Land and assessed 




Army and ordnance ... 


9,061,233 


taxes 


4,479,944 


Civil list and civil 




Income tax ... 


5,656,528 


services 


2,736,806 


Post-ofifice 


2,004,007 


Miscellaneous 


7,903,533 


Miscellaneous 


1,489,505 

;^59, 701,404 


Total ... 




Total ... 


;^55, 161,591 



The income tax has been reintroduced by Peel. The expenditure on 
the national debt is largely reduced by the abandonment of the old 
*• sinking fund." A surplus of ;^4,ooo,ooo realized. 



268 



APPENDIX, 



A CRIMEAN WAR BUDGET, 1855. 



Income. 


21,991,675 


Expenditure, 
Interest on national 


Customs , 


Excise 


17,042,295 


debt, etc 27,864,533 


Stamps 


7,159,539 


Navy 14,490,105 


Land and assessed 




Army and ordnance 13,831,601 


taxes 


3,225,121 


Civil list and civil 


Income tax ... 


10,922,266 


services ... ... 7,706,721 


Post-office 


2,635,336 


Miscellaneous ... 5,242,026 


Miscellaneous 


1,115,335 
^64,09 1, 567 




Total ... 


Total ... ;^69, 134,986 



A deficit of ;i^5, 000,000 to be mode up by borrowing, in spite of a 
heavily increased income tax, raised from 7^. to \s. /\.d. on the ^. The 
war has swelled the naval and military expenses by ^10,000,000. 



A MODERN BUDGET, 1898. 



Income. 




Expenditure. 




£ 


£ 


Customs 


21,798,000 


Interest on national 


Excise 


28,300,000 


debt, etc 25,000,000 


Stamps (including 


Navy 20,852,000 


death duties, etc.) 


18,750,000 


Army 19,330,000 


Land and assessed 


Civil list and civil 


taxes 


2,430,000 


services ... ... 22,818,003 


Income tax ... 


. 17,250,000 


Miscellaneous ... 14,935,991 


Post-office 


. 12,170,000 




Telegraphs ... 


3,010,000 




Miscellaneous 


2,986,004 




Total ... 


^106,694,004 


Total ... /i02,935,994 



Customs, owing to huge remissions of taxation since i860, remain low. 
"Stamps" are enormously increased, largely owing to new death-duties. 
The Post-office brings in almo t five times its yield of 1855. Telegraphs, 
now a Government monop )ly, are a new heading. Income tax, at 8</. 
in the pound, yields half as much again as it did at is. /\d. in 1855. Civil 
service expenditure has increased at an even greater rate than military 
and naval. The national debt shrinks every year. 



INDEX. 



Abdul-Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, 172 
Abdul-Hamid, Sultan of Turkey, 

massacres of, 203 ; his war with 

Greece, 205 
Abdur Rahman, ameer of Cabul, 236, 

237 
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, his victory in 

Egypt. 5 
Aberdeen, Lord, joins the Whigs, 

127 ; engages in Crimean wax, 129 ; 

resigns otifice, 136 
Abu-Klea, battle of, 183 
Abyssinian war, the, 159, 160 
Addington, Henry, prime minister, 4 ; 

makes peace of Amiens, 9 ; resigns 

office, 18 ; joins Grenville ministry, 

28 ; home secretary, 59 ; retires 

from politics, 63 
Afghan war, the first, 123, 124 ; the 

second, 235, 236 
Africa, South, the Enghsh in, 51, 

250-255 
Africa, Western, colonies of, 250 ; 

history of, 257 ; struggle with the 

French in, 257 
Alabama, case of the, 150; arbitration 

concerning, 167 
Albert of Coburg, Prince Consort, 91 
Albuera, battle of, 42 
Alexander I. of Russia, 7 ; his wars 

with Napoleon, 24, 30, 44 
Alexander II. of Russia, his war with 

England, 137 ; invades Turkey, 

173 ; death of, 192 



Alexander III. of Russia, his policy, 

192 
Alexandria, battle of, 5; bombard- 
ment of, 181 
Alma, battle of the, 132 
America. See United States 
American colonies, history of the, 

246-250 
Amiens, peace of, 7 
Arabi Pasha, rebellion of, 180, i8l 
Armed Neutrality, the, 2, 6 
Armenian atrocities, the, 203 
Assaye, battle of, 216 
Auckland, Lord, Governor-General of 

India, 222 
Austerlitz, battle of, 25 
Australia, British settlement in, 212 ; 

history of, 241-244 
Austria, her wars with Napoleon, 24, 

38, 46 ; Italian wars of, 103, 145 ; 

Prussian war of, 159 
Atbara, battle of the, 207 

Badajoz, siege of, 45 

Balaclava, battle of, 134 

Balfour, Arthur, Irish secretary, 190 

Bareilly, battle of, 233 

Baylen, capitulation of, 35 

Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli 

Bentinck, Lord George, leader of 

Protectionists, 98, 107 
Berlin, decrees, 31 ; treaty of, 174 
Bismarck, Prince, Prussian minister, 

attacks Denmark, 146 ; crushes 



270 



INDEX. 



Austria, 159; attacks France, 167; 
his foreign policy, 159, 167, 174 ; 
his colonial policy, 253 ; driven 
from office, 192 
Bliicher, Marshal, commands the 

Prussians at Waterloo, 50 
Bonaparte, Jerome, King of West- 
phalia, 30 
Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Naples, 

27 ; King of Spain, 35 
Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 

27 ; abdicates, 41 
Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon. See 

Napoleon III. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon I. 
Borodino, battle of, 45 
Boulogne, Napoleon at, 17 
British Central Africa, 255 
British Columbia, colony of, 248 
British East Africa Company, 255 
British Guiana, annexed, 51 ; its boun- 
dary disputes, 203 
British South Africa Company, 255 
Broad Church party, the, 123 
Brougham, Henry, Lord Chancellor, 

73 
Browning, Robert, 119 
Bulgarian atrocities, the, 173 
Burmah, first war with, 222 ; second 

war with, 228 ; annexation of, 236 
Busaco, battle of, 40 
Byron, George, Lord, 66, 119 

Cabul, British disaster at, 223 ; 

taken by General Roberts, 236 
Calder, Admiral, defeats Villeneuve, 

22 
Canada, invaded by Americans, 48 ; 

Fenian raids in, 160; history of, 

247, 248 ; dominion of, 249 
Candahar, seized by British, 223 ; 

second conquest of, 234 ; battle of, 

235 
Canning, George, 64; his foreign 

policy, 66 ; prime minister, 67 
Cape Colony, annexed by Britain, 

213; subsequent history of, 2^1, 252 
Carlyle, Thomas, historian, 120, 121 
Carnatic, annexed by Wellesley, 216 
Caroline, Queen, her troubles, 62, 63 



Castlereagh, Lord, reactionary policy 

of, 59, 60 ; death of, 63 
Catholic Emancipation Bill. See 

Emancipation, Catholic 
Cato Street conspiracy, 61 
Cavagnari, Sir Louis, murdered at 

Cabul, 236 
Cavendish, Lord Frederick, murder 

of, 179 
Cavour, Sardinian minister, 145 
Cawnpore, massacre of, 232 ; battle 

of, 233 
Central African Company, the, 255 
Cliamberlain, Joseph, opposes Home 
Rule, 186, 188 ; joins the Unionist 
ministry, 202 
Charasia, battle of, 236 
Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, his 

war with Austria, 103 
Charles IV. of Spain, deposed by 

Napoleon, 35 
C harles X. of France, deposed, 72 
Charlotte, Princess, marriage and 

death of, 59 
Chartist movement, the, 93, loi 
Chillianwallah, battle of, 226 
China, first war with, 240 ; second 
war with, 141 ; later developments 
in, 240 
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 194 
Ciudad Rodrigo, storm of, 45 
Clarence, William, duke of. See 

William IV. 
Clerkenwell Explosion, the, i6i 
Cleveland, Grover, American presi- 
dent, 204 
Clyde, Colin Campbell, Lord, sup- 
presses Indian Mutiny, 233 
Codrington, Admiral, at Navarino, 68 
Confederation of the Rhine, 25 
"Conservative," rise of the party- 
name, 94 
Consols, converted by Goschen, 194 
" Conspiracy to Murder " Bill, the, 143 
Continental system, 31, 32 
Convention of Cintra, 36 
Copenhagen, battle of, 6; seized by 

British, 33 
Corporations Act, the, repealed, 69 
Cotton Famine, the, 148 



INDEX. 



271 



Council, the " Orders in," of 1807, 32 
Crimea, invasion of the, 132-138 
Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of. King 

of Hanover, 90 
Cyprus, annexed by Beaconsfield, 174, 

17s 

Dalhousie, Lord, Governor-General 
of India, 227, 228 

Delhi, taken by British, 216; seized 
during Mutiny, 232 

Denmark, wars of England with, 6, 
33 ; wars of, with Prussia, 146 

Derby, Edward Stanley, Earl of, 
prime minister in 1852, 107 ; in 1858, 
143 ; in 1866, 156 

Devonshire, Duke of. See Hartington 

Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beacons- 
field, leads the Protectionists, 98, 
99 ; chancellor of the exchequer, 
107, 143 ; prime minister, 163 ; his 
Reform Bill, 162 ; second ministry 
of, 170 ; at Congress of Berlin, 174 ; 
loses office, 177 

Eastern Question, the, 128, 130 
East India Company, the, abolished, 

144. 234 
Education Acts, the, 165, 194 

Egypt, French expelled from, 5 ; 

English interference in, 171, 180 ; 

conquered by Lord Wolseley, 181. 

See also Soudan 
Elba, Napoleon in, 47, 49 
EUenborough , Lord , Governor • General 

of India, 224, 225 
Emancipation, Catholic, Pitt's scheme 

for, 4 ; urged by the Whigs, 28 ; 

granted by Wellington, 70 
Eylau, battle of, 30 

Factory Acts, the, 96, 116 
Fashoda, the French at, 208 
Fenians, the, 160, 161 
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, kidnapped 

by Napoleon, 35 ; his reign, 83 
Ferozeshah, battle of, 226 
Forster, William, Irish secretary, 178 
Fox, Charles James, takes office, 28 ; 

dies, a8 



France. See under names of kings 

and statesmen 
Francis II., Emperor, his wars with 

Napoleon, 24, 25. 37, 38, 46 
Francis Josepli, Emperor, suppresses 

Hungarian revolt, 103 ; his war 

with France, 144 ; his war with 

Prussia, 159 
Frederick William III. of Prussia, his 

wars with Napoleon, 29, 30, 46, ^o 
Frederick William IV. of Prussia, his 

dealings with the Revolution, 104 
Free Kirk, the, of Scotland, 125, 126 
Free Trade, advocated by Huskisson, 

64 ; by Peel, 98 
Friedland, battle of, 30 
Fuentes d'Onoro, battle of, 42 

Garibaldi, conquers Naples, 145 
Gaslight, invention of, 109 
George III. vetoes Catholic Emanci- 
pation, 4, 28 ; madness of, 59 , 
death of, 61 
George IV. , his regency, 59 ; accession 
of, 61 ; quarrels of with Queen 
Caroline, 63 ; dies, 72 
Germany, empire of, 167 ; See Bis- 
marck, William I., William II. ; 
colonies of, 253, 254 
Ghuznee, stormed by the British, 223 
Gladstone, William E., chancellor of 
the exchequer, 128 ; his character, 
153 ; his budgets, 154 ; prime 
minister, 164 ; disestablishes Irish 
Church, 164 ; his Irish policy, 165 ; 
his foreign policy, 166, 167 ; loses 
office, 170 ; denounces Bulgarian 
atrocities, 173 ; returns to office, 
177 ; his second ministry, 178-184 ; 
introduces Home Rule, 187 ; 
defeated, 189; his third ministry, 
198 ; retires, 200 ; dies, 209 
Gooderich, Lord, prime minister, 67 
Gordon. Charles, General, his defence 

of Khartoum, and death, 182, 183 
Goschen, G., chancellor of the ex- 
chequer, converts consols, 194 
Gough, Hugh, Lord, fights the Sikhs, 
225, 326 



2J1 



INDEX. 



Greek war of independence, 66, 68 ; 
war with Turkey, 1897, 205 

Granville, William, Lord, prime 
minister, 28 

Grey, Charles, Lord, leader of Whigs, 
73 ; introduces Reform Bill, 74 ; 
carries Reform Bill, 78 ; his Poor 
Law, 86 ; abolishes slavery, 88 ; 
retires, 89 

Griqualand annexed, 253 

Grouchy, marshal, in Waterloo cam- 
paign, 50 

Guzerat, battle of, 226 

Gwalior, battle of, 234 

Hanover, electorate of, annexed by 
Prussians, 24 ; taken by Napoleon, 
30 ; separated from England, 90 ; 
annexed by Bismarck, 159 

Hardinge, Lord, governor -general, 
225 

Hartington, Marquis of, opposes 
Home Rule, 188 ; joins Unionist 
government, 202 

Hastings, Marquis of, Governor - 
General of India, 219, 220 

Havelock, General, in Persia, 141 ; at 
Lucknow, 233 

High Church party, the, 123, 125 

Hohenlinden, battle of, 2 

Holkar, Jeswunt Rao, wars of, with 
British, 216 

Holland, English campaigns in, 3 ; 
given to Louis Bonaparte, 27 ; 
annexed by Napoleon, 41 ; restored 
to House of Orange, 52 ; separated 
from Belgium, 73 

Holy Alliance, the, 65 

Home Rule in Ireland, advocated by 
Parnell, 176, 179, 185 ; first Bill 
for, 187 ; second Bill for, 198 

Hundred Days, the, 49-51 

Huskisson, William, president of the 
Board o^ Trade, his commercial 
policy, 64 ; dismissed by Welling- 
ton, 68 ; killed, 114 

Hyde Park riots, the, 162 

Imperial federation, its progress, 
258-260 



Income Tax, orig'n of, 96 

India, conquests of Wellesley in, 215- 
217 ; conquests of Marquis of 
Hastings in, 219, 220 ; Lord Auck- 
land's wars in, 222 223 ; Cabul 
disaster, 223 ; Sikh wars, 225-227 ; 
Mutiny, 229-234 ; East India Com- 
pany abolished, 234 ; second 
Afghan war, 235-237 ; later con- 
quests, 237, 238 ; state of the 
Empire, 238, 239 

Inkerman, battle of, 1^4 

Ionian Islands, the, ceded to Britain, 51 

Ireland, union with England, 3 ; 
O'Connell's agitation in, 70 ; Catho- 
lic Emancipation conceded, 71 ; 
Reform Bill for, 78 ; the Tithe 
war, 89 ; end of " Repeal " in, 95 ; 
the Potato Famine, 98 ; Smith 
O'Brien's rising, 100 ; the Fenians, 
160, 161 ; Church of, disestablished, 
163 ; Gladstone's Land Act, 164 ; 
Parnell and Home Rule, 176 ; agi- 
tation in, 178 ; the Phoenix Park 
murders, 179 ; Gladstone adopts 
Home Rule, 186 ; first Home Rule 
Bill rejected, 188 ; the Plan of Cam- 
paign, 190; Parnell Commission, 
195 ; fall of Parnell, 196 ; second 
Home Rule Bill rejected, 198 

Isandula, battle of, 252 

Ismail, Khedive of Egypt, 172, 180 

Italy, annexations of Bonaparte in 
II, 42 ; partition of, in 1815, 52 ; 
war of 1848 in, 103 ; war of 1859 
in, 144 ; united by Victor Emanuel, 
145 ; war of 1866 in, 159 ; joins the 
Triple Alliance, 192 

Jameson, Dr., his raid, 204, 252, 253 
Java, conquered by British, 218 ; re- 
stored to Holland, 218 
Jellalabad, siege of, 223, 224 
Jena, battle of, 30 
Johannesburg, troubles at, 252, 253 
Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain. 

See Bonaparte 
Josephine, Empress, divorce of, 38 
Jubilee, the Queen's, the first, 190 ; 
the second, 206 



INDEX. 



273 



Kaffir wars, the, 251 

Kent, Edward, Duke of, father of 
Queen Victoria, 72 

Khalifa, the, defeated by Kitchener, 
204,, 207 

Khartoum, siege and fall of, 183 

Khedive. See Ismail and Tcwfik 

Kilmainham Treaty, 179 

Kitchener, Herbert, Lord, his vic- 
tories, 207 

Kriiger, Paul, President of Transvaal, 
204, 253 

Lake, Gerald, Lord, his victories in 

India, 216 
Land League, the, in Ireland, 178, 

179 
Lawrence, Sir Henry, killed at Luck- 
now, 233 
Lawrence, Sir John, organizes Pun- 

jaub, 227, 232 
Leipzig, battle of, 46 
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg marries 

Princess Charlotte, 59 ; King of 

Belgium, 82 
Ligny, battle of, 50 
Lincoln, Abraham, President of the 

United States, 147 
Literature, history of English, 118, 

121, 210 
Liverpool, Robert Jenkinson, Earl of, 

prime minister, 42 ; his policy, 59, 

60 ; takes Canning into partnership, 

63 ; retires, 67 
London, riots in, 60; Reform Bill in, 

78 ; Chartists in, loi ; Hyde Park 

riots, 162 
Louis XVIII., restoration of, 48; 

expelled by Bonaparte, 50 ; restored, 

52 ; attacks Spain, 66 
Louis Napoleon. See Napoleon 

III. 
Louis Philippe, king of the French, 

72, 82 ; disputes of England with, 

96, 97 ; dethroned, loi, 102 
Lucknow, besieged, 232 ; relieved by 

Havelock, 233 
Luddite riots, the, 59 
Luneville, peace of, a 



Magdala, storm of, 159 

Mahdi, the, rise of, 182 ; wars with, 
183 

Mahidpore, battle of, 220 

Mahmoud, Sultan, 66 

Mahrattas, subdued by Wellesley, 
215, 216 ; crushed by Hastings, 
220 

Maiwand, battle of, 236 

Majuba Hill, battle of, 252 

Malacca, ceded to England, 240 

Malta, captured by British, 8 ; dis- 
putes concerning, with Bonaparte 11 

Manchester Massacre, the, 61 

Maori wars, the, 244, 245 

Marchand, Major, at Fashoda, 208 

Marmont, Marshal, defeated at Sala- 
manca, 45 

Massena, Marshal, in Portugal, 39, 40 

Mauritius, conquered by England, 214 

Meanee, battle of, 225 

Menou, General, conquered in Egypt, 

5 
Minorca, restored to Spain, 8 
Moore, Sir John, at Corunna, 37 
Moscow, burning of, 45 
Mysore, crushed by Wellesley, 9, 213 

Nana Sahib commits massacre of 
Cawnpore, 231, 232 

Napier, Sir Charles, conquers Scinde, 
224 

Napier, Robert, Lord, of Magdala, 
conquers Abyssinia, 159 

Napoleon I., his schemes against 
England, 2 ; makes peace of Amiens, 
7; renews war with Britain, 12, 13 ; 
his invasion scheme, 17 ; crowned 
emperor, 19 ; defeats Austria and 
Russia, 24, 25 ; crushes Prussia, 
29 ; institutes the Continental Sys- 
tem, 31 ; invades Spain, 35, 36 ; the 
Wagram campaign, 38 ; his later 
annexations, 41 ; invades Russia, 
44 ; beaten at Leipzig, 46 ; sent to 
Elba, 47 ; returns from exile, 49 ; 
crushed at Waterloo, 51 

Napoleon III., Presidentof the French 
Republic, 102 ; makes himself em- 
peror, 106; joins in Crimean wart 



274 



INDEX. 



130 ; attempts to assassinate him, 

142 ; his ItaHan campaign, 145 ; 

crushed by Germany, 167 
Navarino, battle of, 68 
Nelson, Horatio, Lord, wins battle of 

Copenhagen, 6 ; blockades Toulon, 

20 ; his last campaign, 21, 22 ; dies 

victorious at Trafalgar, 23 
Nepiul war, the, 219 
New Orleans, battle of, 49 
New South Wales, colony of, 212 ; 

later history of, 241, 243 
New Zealand, colonization of, 244, 

245 
Niger Company, the, 257 
Nizam, the, a vassal of the British, 

213 
Nova Scotia, colony of, 247, 249 

O'Brien, Smith, his rebellion, 100 
O'Connell, Daniel, leads agitation in 

Ireland, 70, 71, 89, 92, 95 
Omdurman, battle of, 207 
Orders in Council, the, of 1807, 3a 
Oregon question, the, 246 
Orsini question, the, 142, 143 
Oude, annexed, 228 ; Uie mutiny in, 

231 
Oxford Movement, th«, 1*3 

Palmerston, Henry Temple, Lord, 
joins Lord Grey's cabinet, 73 ; his 
foreign policy, 83, 104 ; recognizes 
Napoleon HL, 106; dismissed 
from office, 107 ; returns to office, 
127 ; becomes premier, 136 ; his 
domestic policy, 140 ; defeated on 
Orsini question, 143 ; returns to 
office, 144 ; his last ministry, 
146-149; dies, 151 

Paris, taken by the allies in 1814, 46 ; 
taken by Wellington, 51 ; revolutions 
in, 72, loi, 106; peace of, 138; 
surrenders to Prussians, 167 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, leads Home 
Rule party, 176 ; organizes Land 
League, 178 ; makes Kilmainham 
Treaty, 179; his negotiations with 
Gladstone, 186; tried by Special 



Commission, 195 ; his fall and 

death, 197 
Paul, Czar of Russia, allied to 

Napoleon, 2 ; murdered, 7 
Peel, Sir Robert, home secretary, 

64; leads Tory party, 89, 90; 

prime minister, 95 ; his legislation, 

96 ; repeals Corn Laws, 98 ; loses 

office, 99 ; death of, 107 
Peninsular War, the, 34-47 
Penny Post, the, 117 
Perceval, Spencer, prime minister, 

28, 42 
Persian war, the, 141 
Pigott, Richard, his forgeries, 195 
Pitt, William, retires from office, 4; 

returns to power, 18 ; death of, 25 
Poland, insurrections in, 73, 145 
Poor Law, the, reformed, 85-87 
Portland, William Bentinck, duke of, 

prime minister, 28 
Portugal, invaded by Junot, 34 ; freed 

by British, 36. See Peninsular war ; 

civil wars in, 66, 83 
Protectionists, the, 99 
Prussia, wars of with Napoleon, 29, 

46, 50 ; revolution in, 104 ; directed 

by Bismarck, 146, 159, 167. See 

also Germany, empire of 
Punjaub, the Sikhs in, 225 ; British 

wars in, 225-227 
Pusey, Dr. Edward, 124 
Pyrenees, battles of the, 47 

Quatre-Bras, battle of, 50 
Quebec, province of, 247, 248 
Queensland, colony of, 242, 243 

Raglan, Lord, commands in the 

Crimea, 131-137 
Railways, development of, in Britain, 

114. "5 
Rangoon, taken by the British, 228 
Reform Bill, the, of 1832, introduced 

by Lord John Russell, 74 ; rejected 

by the Lords, 76 ; passed, jj, 78 

the, of 1866, 162 

the, of 1884, 183 

Repeal agitation in Ireland, 71, 89, 

92. 95 



INDEX. 



«7S 



Rhodes, Cecil, his annexations in 
South Africa, 255, 256 

Roberts, Frederick, Lord, victories of, 
in Afghanistan, 235, 236 

Rosebery, Lord, prime minister, 200, 
201 

Rotten boroughs, the, abolished, 74, 
78 

Runjit Singh, his rule in the Punjaub, 
225 

Russell, Lord John, introduces Re- 
form Bill, 76 ; his first ministry, 
99; quarrel with Palmerston, 106 ; 
loses office, 107 ; serves under Lord 
Aberdeen, 127 ; recond ministry of, 
155; retires from politics, 156 

Russia, joins the Armed Neutrality, 2 ; 
reconciled to Britain, 7 ; her wars 
with Bonaparte, 24, 25, 30, 46 ; 
wars of, with Turkey, 68, 130, 173 ; 
interference of, in Hungary, 103 ; 
war of, wiih England, 131-138 ; at 
Treaty of Berlin, 174 ; advance of, 
in Asia, 222, 235, 237 ; her alliance 
with France, 192 ; advance of, in 
China, 208, 209 

St. Helena, Napoleon at, 51 

St. Lucia, ceded to Britain, 51 

Salamanca, battle of, 45 

Salisbury, Robert Cecil, Marquis of, 
opposes Reform Bill, 162 ; at Con- 
ference of Berlin, 174 ; prime 
minister, 189 ; his foreign pohcy, 
191-193 ; his domestic policy, 194 ; 
loses office, 197 ; second ministry 
of, 202-210 

Sardinia, dealings of Napoleon with, 
II ; attacks Austria in 1848, 103 ; 
joins in Crimean war, 137 ; unites 
Italy, 145 

Schleswig-Holstein question, the, 104, 
146 

Scinde, conquered by Sir Charles 
Napier, 224 

Scindia, war of, with Wellesley, 315, 
316; vassal to Britain, 220 

Scott, Sir Walter, 55, 119 

Sebastopol, siege of, 133-136 

Sedan, battle of, 167 



Sepoy Mutiny, the, 229-231 
Seringipatam, storming of, 215 
Shaftesbury, Anthony, earl of, philan- 
thropist, 1-17 
Shah Sujah, 223, 224 
Shelley, P. B., poet, 119 
Shere Ali, his war with the British, 235 
Siam, disputes with France over, 205, 

238 
Sikhs, rise of the, 225 ; first war of, 
with Britain, 226 ; second war of, 
227 
Singapore, foundation of, 240 
Slavery, abolished in colonies, 87, 88 
Sobraon, battle of, 226 
Soudan campaigns, the, 182, 207 
Soult, Marshal, defeated at Corunna, 
37 ; at Albuera, 42 ; in the Pyrenees, 

47 
South African colonies, history of the, 

250-254 
Spa Fields riot, the, 60 
Spain, allied with Bonaparte, 20 ; 

invaded by Bonaparte, 34, 35 ; 

Peninsular war in, 35-47 ; civil war 

in, 66 ; Carlist war in, 83 ; intrigues 

of Louis Philippe in, 97 
Steamships, introduction of, 112 
Straits Settlements, the, 240 

Talavera, battle of, 39 
Tasmania, colonization of, 242 
Telegraph, introduction of the, 118 
Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 181 
Tenant-right in Ireland, 165 
Tennyson, Alfred, 120 
Theodore, King of Abyssinia, 159 
Thistlewood, Arthur, conspiracy of, 

61 
Tilsit, treaty of, 30 » 

Times newspaper, its litigation with 

Parnell, 195 
Tippoo Sultan, wars with, 215 
Tithe Act, the Irish, 89 
Torres Vedras. lines of, 39 
Toulouse, battle of, 47 
Tractarian movement, the, 124 
Trades Unions, history of, 116 
Trafalgar, battle of, 23 
Transvaal, the, settled by Boers, 251 ; 



276 



INDEX. 



war of, with Britain, 252 ; Jameson's 

raid on, 253 
Trent, case of the, 149 
Trinidad ceded to England, 8 

Uganda, annexed, 256 
Uitlanders, grievances of the, 252, 253 
Ulm, capitulation of, 24 
Union with Ireland, the, 3 
Unionist party, the, 188, 189 
United States, war of 1812 with, 48, 
49 ; civil war in the, 147, 148 ; the 
Alabama claims of, 167 ; inter- 
ference of, in Venezuela, 203 

Venkzuela, disputes with, 203, 204 
Victor Emanuel, King, joins in 

Crimean war, 137 ; unites Italy, 

145 ; his last war with Austria, 159 
Victoria, Queen, accession of, 90 ; her 

marriage, 91 ; her first jubilee, 190; 

her second jubilee, 206 
Victoria, colony of, 242 ; goldfields 

of, 243 
Vienna, congress of, 48, 49 
Villeneuve, Admiral, defeated by 

Nelson, 21-23 
Vimiero, battle of, 36 
Vittoria, battle of, 47 
Vitu, ceded to England, 255 
Volunteer movement, the, 144 

Wagram, battle of, 38 
Walcheren expedition, the, 38 



Waterloo, battle of, 50, 51 

Wellesley, Richard, Marquis of, his 
government in India, 213-217 

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke 
I of, wins biittle of A^saye, 216; 
commands in Portugal, 36 ; vic- 
torious at Talavera, 39; repels 
Mass^na, 40 ; victorious at Sala- 
manca, 45 ; invades France, 47 ; 
wins Waterloo, 50 ; prime minister, 
67 ; his political failures, 68, 69 ; 
retires from office, 73 ; suffers Re- 
form Bill to pass, 78 ; dies, 108 

West Australia, colony of, 242 

West Indian colonies, the, 87, 88, 
212, 250 

William I. of Germany, his victories 
in France, 167 ; his friendship for 
Russia, 192 

William II., Emperor of Germany, 
dismisses Bismarck, 193 ; his an- 
nexations in Africa, 255 

William IV. , accession of, 72 ; his 
dealings with Reform Bill, 77 ; 
death, 90 

Wolseley, Lord, conquers the Zulus, 
252 ; conquers Egypt, 181 ; in the 
Soudan, 183 

Wordsworth, William, poet, 119, 121 

Young Ireland party, the, 100 

Zanzibar, annexation of, 355 
Zulu war, the, 251 



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No. 
9- 

10. 
II. 

12. 

13. 
14. 



States, March 4, 
States, March 4, 



The United 

1 801. 
The United 

1825. ^ 
Territorial Controversies Settled 

by the United States, 1840- 

1850. 
The United States, March 4, 

^1855. . 
The United States, July 4, 1861. 
The United States, March 4, 

1891. 



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and Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B., Assistant in Rhetoric in Colum- 
bia University. With an Introduction on "The Art of Debate," by 
Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D., of Harvard University. Crown 8vo, 
with Full Index. 260 pages. $1.25. 

Many phases of current historical moment are touched upon in this work, 
and it is therefore included here, although not a text-book of history. It is 
in use as a text-book in Harvard University, Columbia University, University 
of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, Colgate University, Oberlin Col- 
lege, and many other institutions. 

In preparing this volume the editors have had a three-fold object in view. 
They have aimed : (1) to furnish a text-book for formal courses in public 
speaking and discussion ; (2) to provide a manual for literary and debating 
societies ; and (3) to give the ordinary worker, not a specialist in the subjects 
treated, suggestions and assistance. It states concisely the principal argu- 
ments, pro and con, on a large number of the important topics of the day ; 
presents working bibliographies on these topics ; gives examples of logical 
statement, and may suggest a systematic method for the treatment of other 
topics. — Extract from Preface. 



C. K, Bolton, Librarian, Public 
Library, Brookline, Mass. : — " I can- 
not resist telling you that ' Briefs for 
Debate ' has proved itself to be one 
of the most useful books in the li- 
brary. We use it constantly in con- 
nection with the High School work." 

Citizen, Philadelphia : — " The 
work is a model of its kind, and will 



prove invaluable to the trained de- 
bater and to the specialist as well as 
to the novice," 

Dial, Chicago: — "A book which 
will be found useful by members of 
literary societies, and will also prove 
a helpful adjunct to the work of the 
teacher of rhetoric." 



Follett — The Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

By M. P. Follett. With an Introduction by Albert Bltshxell 
Hart, Ph.D. Crown Svo, with Appendices -and Index. 404 pages. 
$1.75. 

Contents: I. Genesis of the Speaker's Power. II. Choice of 
the Speaker. III. The Personal Element of the Speaker- 
ship. IV. The Speaker's Parliamentary Prerogatives. V. The 
Speaker's Vote. VI. Maintenance of Order. VII. Dealing 
with Obstruction. VIII. Power through the Committee 
System. IX. Power through Recognition. X. Power as a 
Political Leader. XL The Speaker's Place in our Political 
System. — Appendices. — Index. 



Theodore Roosevelt, in the 
American Historical Rcviexv : — 
" Miss M. P. Follett . . . has 
made a really notable contribution 
to the study of the growth of Amer- 



ican governmental institutions . . . 
with a thoroughness and philosophic 
grasp of her subject that will make her 
book indispensable to every future stu- 
dent of Congressional government." 



Longmans, Green, &- Co's Piiblicatiom 



HARVARD HISTORICAL STUDIES. 

PtiblisJied njider tJie direction of the DepartnieJit. of History and Govern- 
7nent, from the income of the Henry Warren Torrey Fund. 

This Series will comprise works of original research, selected from the recent 
writings of teachers and graduate students in the Department of History 
and Government in Harvard University. The Series will also include 
collections of documents, bibliographies, reprints of rare tracts, etc. The 
monographs will appear at irregular intervals ; but it is hoped that three 
volumes will be published annually, 

TJie volumes of the Series already published are : 

1. The Suppression of the African Slave=Trade to the 

United States of America, 1638=1870. 

By W. E. B. Du Bois, Ph.D., Professor in Wilberforce University. 
Large 8vo, 346 pages. A^^i $1.50. 

2. The Contest over the Ratification of the Federal Con- 

stitution in the State of Massachusetts. 

By S. B. Harding, A.M., Assistant Professor of History in Indiana 
University. Large 8vo, 202 pages. AV/$i.25. 

3. A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina. 

By D. F. Houston, A.M., Adjunct Professor of I'olitical Science in 
the University of Texas. Large 8vo, 178 pages. A'd'/$i.25. 

4. Nominations for Elective Office in the United States. 

By Frederick \V. Dallinger, A.M., Member of the Massachusetts 
Senate, etc. Large 8 vo, 204 pages. A'^d'/$i.50. 



Journal, Boston: — "Mr. Dallinger 
has brought to the task, not only a 
marked talent for research, and for 
the handling of data, but a singularly 
consistent non-partisan attitude, 



which gives his book genuine scien- 
tific value. . . . It is of interest 
to all who are concerned in good gov- 
ernment, and is to be commended for 
its impartiality and thoroughness." 



5. A Bibliography of British Municipal History, including 

Gilds and Parliamentary Representation. 

By Charles Gross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History in Harvard 

University. Large 8vo, 495 pages. Net%i.^o. 

6. The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest. 

By Theodore C. Smith, Ph.D., Instructor in the University of Mich- 
igan. Large 8vo, 362 pages. A^^^$i.75. 

7. The American Provincial Governor in the English 

Colonies of North America. 

By EvARTS Boutell Greene, Professor of History in the University 
of Illinois. 8vo. Net%\.so. 

8. The County Palatine of Durham. A Study in Con- 

stitutional History, 

By Gaillard Thomas Lapsley, Ph.D. 8vo. A^^/$2.oo. {^Shortly. 



Longmans, Green, & Go's Publications. 



ENGLISH HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT. 



Gardiner— A Student's History of England. 

From the Earliest Times to 1885, By Samuel Rawsox Gardiner, 
M.A., LL.D. Illustrated under the superintendence of Mr. St. John 
Hope, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries. Complete in one 
volume. With 378 Illustrations and full Index. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
plain. 1095 pages. $3.00.* 



Or separately: 
Vol. I. B.C. 55-A.D. 
Vol. II. 1 509-1689. 
Vol. III. 1689-1885. 



1509. With 173 Illustrations and Index. $1.20^ 
With 96 Illustrations and Index. 1.20=* 

With 109 Illustrations and Index. 1.20^ 



*** " ' Gardiner's Student's History of England,' through Part IX., will 
serve to indicate the amount of knowledge demanded for entrance to college 
in English history." 

[Extract from T/ie Harvard University Catalogtie^ 

Professor Henry Ferguson, 

Trniity College, Hartford: — " It is, 



the scholar thoroughly conversant 
with the source and with the results of 
recent criticism is plainly revealed." 



in my opinion, by far the best ad- 
vanced school history of England 
that I have ever seen. It is clear, 
concise, and scientific, and, at the 
same time, attractive and interesting. 
The illustrations are very good and 
a valuable addition to the book, as 
they are not mere pretty pictures, 
but of real historical and archxo- 
logical interest." 

The Nation, New York: — "A 
unique feature consists of the very 
numerous illustrations. They throw 
light on almost every phase of Eng- 
lish life in all ages, . . . Never, 
perhaps, in such a treatise has pic- 
torial illustration been used with so 
good effect. The alert teacher will 
find here ample material for useful 
lessons by leading the pupil to draw 
the proper inferences and make the 
proper interpretations and compari- 
sons. . . . The style is compact, 
vigorous, and interesting. There is 
no lack of precision; and, in the 
selection of the details, the hand of 

*^* A prospectus and specimen pages of Gardiner's " Student's History of 
England " 'will be sent on application. 



The Churchman, New York: — 

"It is illustrated by pictures of real 
value; and when accompanied by the 
companion ' Atlas of English His- 
tory ' is all that need be desired for 
its special purpose." 

Critic, New York: — "If we do 
not greatly mistake, this History of 
England will supplant all others used 
as text-books in schools and colleges. 
The name of the author . 
would prepossess anyone in its favor, 
and a perusal of its pages only 
accentuates the feeling that here at 
last we have an accurate, succinct, 
and entertaining book, fit for schools 
as well as for the general reader. . . . 
The illustrations, a notable feature, 
. . . are not the old-fashioned and 
hackneyed ones to be found in most 
so-called illustrated histories; . . . 
they are illustrative of the text and 
afford an excellent study in the 
manners of the times." 



Longmans, Green, &- Go's Publications, 



Gardiner — An Atlas of English History. 

Edited by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, M.A., LL.D, 66 colored 
Maps, 22 Plans of Battles, etc., and full Index. A companion Atlas 
to Gardiner's " Student's History of England." Fcap. 4to, $1.50.* 

This Atlas is intended to serve as a companion to Mr. S. R. Gardiner's 
" Student's History of England." In addition to the historical maps of the 
British Isles, in whole or in part, are others of Continental countries or dis- 
tricts which were the scenes of events connected morp or less closely with 
English history ; and a series of plans of important battles and sieges is 
also provided. 



Professor Edward Channing-, 

Harvard University, Cambridge, 
Mass. : — "For S. R. Gardiner's Atlas 
I have nothing but praise. The 
maps contain precisely the informa- 
tion a student most desires. They 
are well executed, and the Index 
leaves little to be desired." 

Professor Henry Ferguson, 

Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.: — 
" It is a very real pleasure to be able 
to express one's opinion about a 
work as well conceived, as carefully 
prepared, and beautifully executed, 
as this is. It will be of the greatest 
use to students of English history, 
and I shall be glad to recommend it 
most earnestly." 

Professor Charles F. Richard- 
son, Dartmouth College, Hanover, 



N. H.: — " Gardiner's 'Atlas of Eng- 
lish History' is altogether the best 
volume of the sort." 

Professor Eleanor L. Lord, 

Smith College, Northampton, Mass.: 
— " ... It seems to me ad- 
mirable and comprehensive, yet free 
from that confusion which comes 
from over- crowding maps with 
names. I am sure that all teachers 
and students, not only of English 
but also of European history, will 
find the atlas of the greatest value. 
I shall cordially recommend it to my 
own classes." 

Professor Richard Hudson,Uni- 

versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 
Mich.: — " ... It has already 
been recommended to our classes in 
English history." 



Preparatory Questions on Gardiner's Student's History 
of England. 

By R. Somervell, M.A., Assistant Master of Harrow School. 
i2mo. 62 pages. $0.35.* 



Prof. S. B. Harding, Indiana 
University, Bloomington, Ind.: 
" The work is well done, and the 



book should prove a successful aid 
to young students." , 



Warner — English History in Shakspeare's Plays. 

By Rev. Beverley E. Warner. Crown 8vo, 331 pages. $1.75. 

In use as a text-book in Sophie Newcomb College, New Orleans, La.; 
Kenyon College, Gambler, Ohio; Center College, Danville, Ky.; and other 
institutions. 

A work of great value to the student of history, showing what an aid to 
the understanding of certain important phases of England's national devel- 
opment lies in these historical plays, which cover a period of three hundred 
years — from King John to Henry VIII. 



Longmans, Green, &- Co' s PtibltcationS. 



Higginson and Channing — English History for Ameri- 
cans. 

By Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Author of " Young Folks' Hist- 
ory of the United States," etc., and Edward ChanxNINg, Assistant 
Professor of History in Harvard University. With 77 Illustrations, 
6 colored Maps, Bibliography, a Chronological Table of Contents, and 
Index. i2mo. 366 pages. $1.20.* 

The name "English History for Americans," which suggests the key- 
note of this book, is based on the simple fact that it is not the practice of 
American readers, old or young, to give to English history more than a 
limited portion of their hours of study. ... It seems clear that such readers 
will use their time to the best advantage if they devote it mainly to those 
events in English annals which have had the most direct influence on the 
history and institutions of their own land. . . . The authors of this book 
have therefore boldly ventured to modify in their narrative the accustomed 
scale of proportion ; while it has been their wish, in the treatment of every 
detail, to accept the best result of modern English investigation, and 
especially to avoid all unfair or one-sided judgments. . . . 

— Extract from Authors' Preface. 

Recent school adoptions of this book are the following : State Normal 
School, North Adams, Mass.; Glenwood Collegiate Institute, Matawan, N.J.; 
John B. Diman's School, Newport, R. I.; High School, Adams, Mass.; 
Public Schools, Long Branch, N. J.; Public Schools, \Yarren, R. I.; Penn- 
sylvania Institute for Deaf and Dumb, Philadelphia, Pa.; Public Schools, 
West Grove, Pa.; Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Pa.; Packer Institute, 
Brooklyn, N. Y.; New Church School, Waltham, Mass.; Public Schools, 
Dedham, Mass.; Pierre University, E. Pierre, S. Dak.; North Yarmouth 
Academy, Yarmouth, Me.; High School, Belmont, Mass.; Summit Acad- 
emy, Summit, N. J.; Pingry School, Elizabeth, N. J.; Ohio Institute for 
Deaf and Dumb, Columbus, Ohio; Free Academy, Utica, N. Y.; Temple 
College, Philadelphia, Pa.; Roxbury Latin School, Roxbury, Mass.; Public 
Schools, Brooklyn, N.Y,; Clifton School, Cincinnati, Ohio; State Normal 
School, Bioomsburg, Pa., etc. 

"^^ ^ A prospectus shoiving genei'al scope of the work, specimen pages, etc., 
will be sent to any address zipon request. 



Francis Parkman : — " Your 
book will tend to make boys and 
girls understand that England and 
America are not natural enemies, but 
natural friends, in spite of follies on 
both sides. It will also counteract 
the French tendency to cut loose 
from the past and launch on a sea of 
theories and generalities, forgetting 
that past, present, and future are 
joined in every sound political growth, 
and that we can learn much from the 
successes and failures of our fathers." 



Dr. W. T. Harris, U. S. Com- 
missioner of Education : — " I believe 
it to be the best introduction to Eng- 
lish history hitherto made for the use 
of schools. It is just what is needed 
in the school and in the family. It 
is the first history of England that I 
have seen which gives proper atten- 
tion to sociology and the evolution 
of political ideas, without neglecting 
what is picturesque and interesting 
to the popular taste." 



Longmans, Green, & Co's Ptihlications, 



Ransome — A Short History of England. 

From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. With Tables, Maps, 
Plans, Index, etc., etc., by Cyril Ransome, M.A. Crown 8vo. 
518 pages. $1.50. 

FROM THE PREFACE. 

The aim of this History of England is to give a short narrative of 
the growth of the British Empire and the Constitution from the 
earliest times to the present day, and to give a clear and intelligible 
account of those events and institutions a knowledge of which is so 
much needed by the student of modern political life. 

To attain these ends within the space of 450 pages has been a 
most difficult task, and a rigid censorship has been needed, both in 
choosing the subjects and events to be mentioned, and in allotting 
an appropriate space to each. 

Everywhere I have been guided by what I have learnt, as a prac- 
tical teacher, of the difficulties which most readers find hardest to 
surmount, and I have tried to bear in mind that the object of teach- 
ing history is not to cram with facts and dates (useful and indeed 
necessary, as these are), but to awaken thought, and especially to 
teach the habit of thinking intelligently about political events. 

The history is divided into nine books, according to dynasties, 
and each chapter contains, as a rule, the reign of one king. At the 
beginning of each book are placed genealogies of the royal families, 
and pedigrees to illustrate special points are given in the notes. At 
the head of each reign is a list of notable characters to whom atten- 
tion is to be directed. Numerous maps and plans are given, with 
tables of the chief events, and a complete analysis is provided by 
the table of contents. The style aims at being simple but not 
childish. 



Prof. S. B. Harding, Univ. of 

Indiana, Bloomington, Ind.: — "I 
used Ransome's Short History of 
England with a class in our summer 
school last year, and found it one of 
the most satisfactory historical text- 
books that it has ever been my for- 
tune to use. Clearness of statement, 
accuracy as to facts, and the preser- 
vation of a proper perspective are 
among the book's good points." 



Miss Mary P. Frye, Dept. of 
History, High School, Brookline, 
Mass. : — " Ransome's England 
stands the test of use. Next year 
more of them will be used." 

Miss Anna C. Marston, Dobbs 
Ferry, N. Y.: — " I have used Ran- 
some's History of England this year 
and I am much pleased with it. It 
proves to be just the book I need 
for the students who study English 
History. I shall continue its use." 



Longmans, Green, 6r Go's Piihlications, 



Airy— A Text=Book of English History from the Earliest 
Times. 

For Colleges and Schools. By Osmond Airy, Author of " The 
English Restoration and Louis XIV." With i6 Maps and a full 
Index. i2mo. 568 pages. $1.50. 
Among recent school adoptions of this book are the following: Central 

Normal College, Waddy, Ky.; Columbian University, Washington, D. C; 

Olivet College, Olivet, Mich.; Packer Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y.; Teachers' 

College, N. Y, City; The Misses Masters' School, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.; 

Albion College, Albion, Mich.; Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; and 

others. 



Professor Charles C. Swisher, 

The Columbian University, Wash- 
ington, D. C: — " I have found it 
well adapted for undergraduate 
work." 

F. G. Bates, Alfred University, 
Alfred, N. Y.: — " In Airy's History 



I find a book adapted to those stu- 
dents desiring to gain a comprehen- 
sive view of English history in a 
limited space of time. The summary 
of leading facts, and the chronolog- 
ical table of treaties, statutes and 
charters will prove valuable aids to 
the student." 



Armitage — The Childhood of the English Nation ; 

Or, The Beginnings of English History. By Ella S. Armitage. 
Third Edition. i2mo. 259 pages. $0.80.* 

Bright — A History of England. 

By the Rev. J. Franck Bright, D.D., Master of University College, 

Oxford. 

Period I. — MeditEval Monarchy: The Departure of the Romans 

to Richard III. From A.D. 449 to 14S5. i2mo. 426 pages. $1.50. 

Period II. — Personal Monarchy: Henry VII. to James II. From 

14S5 to 1688. i2mo. 478 pages. $1.75. 

Period III. — Constitutional Monarchy: William and Mary to 

William IV. From 1689 to 1837. i2mo. 693 pages. $1.75. 

Period IV. — The Growth of Democracy: Victoria. From 1S37 to 

1880. i2mo. 618 pages. $1.75. 

Creighton — Elementary History of England. 

Being an introductory volume to the " Epochs of English History." 
By the Rt, Rev. Mandell Creighton, D.D., Lord Bishop of 
London. i2mo. 139 pages. $0.30.* 
One of the best primers of English history, readable, accurate, and 
unusually comprehensive. 

Creighton — A First History of England. 

With numerous Illustrations. By Louise Creighton (Mrs. Mandell 
Creighton). i6mo. 400 pages. $0.80.* 



Longmans, Green, 6r Go's Publications, 

^^- — ■ — _ — ■• 

Powell and Tout — History of England. 

For the Use of Schools. By F. York Powell, M.A., and T. F. 
Tout, M.A. In three Parts. With Maps and Plans. 
The completion of this series provides a work which covers English History 
rather more fully than most other students' histories. It contains more 
detail and is especially strong in the treatment of the social life of the 
people, and of the growth of the language and literature. The volumes are 
illustrated with 37 maps and plans. 

Part I. From the Earliest Times to the Death of Henry VII. By F. 
York Powell, M.A. i2mo. 388 pages, $1.00. 

Part II. From the Death of Henry VII. to the Accession of William 
and Mary. i2mo. 390 pages. $1.00. 

Part III. William and Mary to the Present Time. By T. F. Tout, 
M.A. i2mo. 359 pages. $1.00. 

Simple Stories from English History. 

A First History for Lower Forms. With 6 Illustrations in Colors and 
55 in Black and White. i2mo. 199 pages. $0.50. 

Symes — A Companion to School Histories of England. 

Being a Series of Short Essays on the Most Important Movements, 
Social, Literary, and Political, in English History. By J. E. Symes, 
M.A., University College, Nottingham. i2mo, 254 pages, $1.00, 

EPOCHS OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 

Edited by the Right Rev. Mandell Creighton, D.D., Lord Bishop 
of London. With Maps and Tables, i6mo. 

1. Early England. Up to the 5. The Struggle Against Abso= 

Norman Conquest. By Frederick lute Monarchy, 1603=1688. By 

York Powell. W^ith 4 Maps. Mrs. S. R. Gardiner. With 2 

$0.30.* Maps. $0.30.* 

_ , 6. The Settlement of the Con= 

2. England a Continental stitution, 1639=1784. By James 
Power. Prom the Conquest to Rowley, M.A. With 4 Maps. 
Magna Charta, 1066-1216. By ^q 30 * 

^Z'i Creighton. With a Map. ^; England During the Amer= 

* -^ lean and European Wars, 1765 = 

3. Rise of the People and '^■?.?; ^?>^ ^- l" '^\^'^°^''' '^•^• 
Growth of Parliament. From ^^itn 5 Maps. $0.30* 

the Great Charter to the Accession 8. Modern England, 1820- 

of Henry VII. 1215-1485. By '885. By Oscar Browning, M.A. 

James Rowley, M.A. With 4 $0.30.* 

Maps. $0.30.* 9. Epochs of English History. 

A complete edition in one volume. 

4. The Tudors and the Refor- Edited by Mandell Creighton, 
mation, 1485 = 1603. By the Right D.D. With 23 Maps and 27 Tables 
Rev. M. Creighton. With 3 Maps. and Pedigrees. Tenth Edition (1893). 
$0.30.* i2mo. 750 pages. $1.50.* 



Longmans, Green, &- Co' s Publications. 

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY AND GOVERNMENT. 

Acland and Ransome — A Hand=book in Outline of the 

Political History of England to 1894. 

Chronologically arranged. By the Rt. Hon. A. H. Dyke Acland and 
Cyril Ransome, M. A. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. 333 pages. $2.00. 

This is a college class-book for students engaged in the study of English 
Political History, being used at Harvard University, University of Minne- 
sota, and in other universities and colleges. 



English history, as well as its clear 
and concise statement of the most 
recent history, are particularly val- 
uable. I do not see how it could be 
improved, or how any teacher or 
advanced student could afford to do 
without it." 



Mr. Charles L. Wells, Univer- 
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 
Minn.: — " I have found it an inval- 
uable aid for the study and teaching 
of English history whether narrative 
or constitutional. Its admirable sum- 
maries of important documents and 
of foreign affairs contemporary with 

Amos — A Primer of the English Constitution and Gov= 
ernment. 

For the use of Colleges, Schools, and Private Students. By Sheldon 
Amos, M.A. Crown 8vo. 262 pages. $1.75. 

Montague — The Elements of English Constitutional Hist= 
ory from the Earliest Times to the P^'esent Day. 

By F. C. Montague, M.A., Professor of History, University College, 
London, late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Crown Svo. 254 
pages. $1.25. 
This book is designed to give such an account of the growth of English 

institutions as may be intelligible to those who are beginning to read history. 

So far as the writer knows there is no other book which sinis precisely at 

this object. — Extract from Preface. 



our constitutional de\ elopment than 
Mr. Montague has so dexterously 
condensed into a cojple of hundred 
crown octavo pages." 



Educational Times: — "It would 
be difficult to conceive, and certainly 
it would be impossible to discover, 
a more compact, lucid, sane, exhaust- 
ive, and intelligible exposition of 

Ransome — The Rise of Constitutional Government in 
England. 

Being a Series of Twenty Lectures on the History of the English Con- 
stitution delivered to a Popular Audience. By Cyril Ransome, M.A. 
Crown Svo. 280 pages. $2.00. 

Wakeman and Hassall — Essays Introductory to the 

Study of English Constitutional History. 

By Resident Members of the University of Oxford. E-lited by Henry 
Offley Wakeman, M.A., Fellow of All Souls College and Tutor of 
Keble College, and Arthur Hassall, M.A., Student and Tutor of 
Christ Church. Crown Svo. 349 pages. $2.25. 



Longmans, Green, & Go's Publications, 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 

EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 

A Series of books narrating the History of Greece and Rome, and of their 
Relations to Other Countries at Successive Epochs. Edited by Rev. Sir 
G. W. Cox, Bart., M.A., and C. Sankey, M.A. Original Edition, io 
volumes. With Maps. i6mo. Price of each volume, $i.oo. 

" There is no school book on ancient history equal to these books in point 
of convenience, thoroughness, and literary finish. They furnish to teachers 
the means of adding to any school or college course in ancient history an 
opportunity for thorough investigation of special topics of interest." 



The Qracchi, Marius, and Sulla. 

By A. H. Beesly. With Maps. 
$i.oo. 

Roman History. The Early 
Empire. From the Assassination 
of Julius Caesar to that of Domitian, 
By W. W\ Capes, M.A., late Fellow 
and Tutor of Queen's College ; 
Reader in Ancient History in Univ. 
of Oxford. With 2 Maps. $1.00. 
The Greeks and the Persians. 
By the Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, Bart., 
M.A. With 5 Maps. $1.00. 
The Roman Empire of the Sec= 
ond Century; or, The Age of 
the Antonines. By W.W. Capes, 
M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of 
Queen's College; Reader in Ancient 
History in the University of Oxford. 
With 2 Maps. $1.00. 
The Athenian Empire. By the 
Rev. Sir George W. Cox, M.A. 
With 5 Maps. $1.00. 



Rise of the Macedonian Empire. 

By Arthur M. Curteis, M.A., 
formerly Fellow of Trinity College, 
and late Assistant Master in Sher- 
borne School. With 8 Maps. $1.00. 

Early Rome. From the Founda- 
tion of the City to its Destruction 
by the Gauls. By W. Ihne, Ph.D., 
Professor at the University of Heidel- 
berg. With a Map. $1.00. 

The Roman Triumvirates. By 

Charles Merivale, D.D., Dean 
of Ely. With a Map. $1.00. 

The Spartan and Theban Su= 
premacies. By Charles Sankey, 
M.A. With 5 Maps. $1.00. 

Rome and Carthage. The Punic 
Wars. By R, Bosworth Smith, 
M.A., Assistant Master in Harrow 
School; formerly Fellow in Trinity 
College, Oxford. $1.00. 



GREECE. 
Abbott — A Skeleton Outline of Greek History. 



Chronologically Arranged. 
193 pages. $o.go. 



By Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D. i2mo. 



Cox — A General History of Greece. 

From the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great ; with a 
sketch of the subsequent History to the Present Time. By the Rev. Sir 
G. W. Cox, Bart., M.A. With 11 Maps and Plans. Crown 8vo. $2.00. 



Longmans, Green, 6r Go's Piihlications. 



Greece — Continued* 

Oman — A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to 

the Death of Alexander the Great. 

By C. W. C. Oman, M.A., F.S.A., etc. With 12 Maps (2 colored) 
and Plans, Side-notes, and full Index. i2mo. 568 pages. $1.50. 

*^* "' Oman's History of Greece' will serve to indicate the amount of 
knowledge demanded in Grecian history for entrance to college." 

[Extract from T/ie Harvard University Catalogue ?^ 

During the four or more years since this book was published it has taken 
its place as a standard vSchool History, recommended by leading colleges in 
their catalogues and used in the best schools. The present edition — just 
issued — contains new colored maps. 



Prof. Richard Hudson, Univer- 
sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor: — "The 
best single volume of the History of 
Greece published." 

Grafton Gushing, Teacher of 
English in Groton School, Groton, 
Mass.: — "We have used 'Oman's 
History of Greece' in the Groton 
School for several years and consider 
it the best short history we have 
ever seen. We can thoroughly rec- 
ommend it." 

Julia Anable, Teacher of History 
in the Misses Anable's School, New 
Brunswick, N. J.: — "It gives me 
pleasure to tell you of the satisfaction 
I have had for two years in using 
your ' Oman's History of Greece.' It 
gives a concise though interesting 
picture of the social, as well as of the 
political life of the early Greeks, rous- 
ing and sustaining the interest of 
almost every pupil. I consider it a 
most admirable text-book, stimulat- 
ing a love of further and deeper 
study of ancient peoples." 

Arthur H. Wilde, Instructor in 

History, Northwestern University, 
Evanston, 111. : — ' ' I know of no text- 
book in Grecian History which equals 
Oman for maturer students. Its 
«i>ne is critical, and the style terse 
and agreeable." 

Edmund K. Alden, Department 
>£ History, Packer Collegiate Insti- 



tute, Brooklyn, N. Y.:— " I think it 
meets the wants of the average teacher 
better than any School Plistory of 
Greece with which I am acquainted," 
Gharles W. Mann, Lewis Insti- 
tute, Chicago, 111.: — "I have used 
' Oman's History of Greece ' for four 
years with the best of results. It 
is scholarly but independent, and full 
enough to make the use of reference 
books not so imperative." 

S. B, Harding, Indiana Univer- 
sity, Bloomington, Ind.: — "This 
work has been in use in our Fresh- 
man Class in history ever since its 
first appearance. It has given uni- 
versal satisfaction, both to teachers 
and pupils, and while texts in other 
fields of history have been changed 
over and over again, this promises 
to hold its own for a long time to 
come. I know of no better text for 
a class beginning the study of Greek 
history." 

W. P. Trent, of the University of 
the South, Sewanee,Tenn.: — "I have 
used ' Oman's History of Greece ' for 
several years, and I regard it as one 
of the best College Histories that I 
have any knowledge of," 

Prof. Herbert E. Mills, Vassar 

College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.: — " It 
seems to me a most admirable book — 
by far the best School History of 
Greece in existence." 



Longmans, Green, &- Go's Publications. 



ROME. 
How and Leigh— A History of Rome to the Death of 
Caesar. 

By W. W. How, M.A., of Merton College, Oxford, and H. D. Leigh, 
M.A., of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. With 9 lithograph Maps, 
12 Maps and Plans in the text, and numerous Illustrations from 
archaeological sources. Large crown 8vo. 590 pages. $2.00.* 

This is a text-book for colleges, and is in use as such in Harvard 
University, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, Indiana 
University, University of Michigan, and many other leading Institutions 
throughout the country. 

The authors have dwelt at some length on the more important and event- 
ful wars, and on the history of the Roman army, and have attempted to 
describe clearly, if briefly, the development of the constitution. 

For the selection of numerous illustrations the authors are indebted to 
Mr. Cecil Smith, of the British Museum. They are in all cases derived 
from authentic archseological sources, and have been taken, so far as possi- 
ble, kom well-known and accessible collections, above all from the British 
Museum. 



Charles E. Bennett, Cornell 
University, Ithaca, N. Y., in 77ie 
American Historical Reviezo for 
April: — " This is a valuable book 
and ought to be warmly welcomed. 
The subject is no new one, but the 
authors of the volume before us 
approach it with an unusually high 
conception of their task and with 
unusual equipment for its execution. 
While not neglecting the more im- 
portant achievements of the Roman 
arms and the triumphs of Roman 
foreign policy, Messrs. How and 
Leigh have addressed themselves 
with special fullness to the internal 
history of Rome, to a consideration 
of the moving forces in its affairs, 
and above all to the development 
and decay of the republican con- 
stitution. The volume displays 
throughout a firm grasp of the sub- 
ject-matter, wise perspective and 
clear arrangement, while the exposi- 
tion is always interesting and at 
times is invested with a positive lit- 
erary charm. The work is illustrated 
by excellent maps, plans and numer- 
ous cuts of archaeological and his- 
torical interest. An index and two 



appendices, on the assemblies and 
the chief Roman roads, conclude 
the volume." 

Fred Morrow Fling, University 
of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. : — " The 
narrations are excellent, and are 
clearly the work of historical stu- 
dents and not simply bookmakers. 
The illustrations are both attractive 
and scientific." 

Arthur H. Wilde, Northwestern 
University, Evanston, 111,: — "The 
illustrations are quite outside of the 
common run of books on Roman 
History for schools and possess high 
educational value. I like the maps. 
The authors have well discussed the 
fundamentals of the Roman Con- 
stitution. The subject of Carthage 
is well done. Good judgment is 
shown in the space given the legend- 
ary and real history of early Rome, 
which is not always done. These 
are excellences which make the book 
very acceptable." 



Lommans, Green, &- Go's Publications, 



LONGMANS' HISTORICAL NOVELS, 

Edited, with Introduction to each volume, by George Laurence Gomme. 

England does not possess a national epic and but few national traditions. 
But its literature is enriched by romances, dramatic and narrative, founded 
on the events of almost all epochs in the national history. The quality of 
these romances varies, of course, but some of them are of classical value, 
many are far above the average of fiction, and nearly all are of interest and 
value to the literary history of the country. 

It is proposed to reproduce such of these romances as are available and 
suitable for the purpose in a uniform series, arranged chronologically under 
the reigns of the sovereigns to which they belong. Each volume will be 
accompanied by an introduction, which will shortly state the evidence for 
the historical events dealt with in the story, and describe how far the author 
has departed from and how far adhered to real history. It will also describe 
the costumes, weapons, and other characteristics of the period, the places 
and buildings referred to, and will give such biographical particulars of the 
characters who appear before the reader as may be necessary to elucidate 
the story and its treatment. The introduction will also trace the historical 
continuity from volume to volume, and the series, as a whole, will thus 
represent English history as it has been portrayed in iiction. Illustrations 
rf all the principal features will be given, which will include reproductions 
v)f royal and historical signatures, coins, seals, and heraldic devices. 



Lord Lytton's Harold, The Last 
of the Saxon Kings. [Harold.] 

With 15 Illustrations. Tp. xcvi-415. 
$1.50. 

Macfarlane's (Charles) The 
Camp of Refuge, [wmiam 1.] 

With 20 Illustrations. Pp. Ixvii- 
427. $1.50. 



Rufus, or the Red King. (Anon- 
ymous.) 1S38. [William II.] 

\_F7'eJ)ari72g 



Kingsley's (Charles) Westward 

Ho ! With 20 illustrations. Pp. 
xlix-^95. [Elizabeth.] $1.50. 



BUILDERS OF GREATER BRITAIN. 

Edited by li. F. Wilson, M.A. 

A set of volumes illustrating the growth and expansion of the Queen's 
Empire, as shown in the lives of the soldiers and governors who have played 
the chief parts. Each volume will contain the best portrait obtainable of 
its subject and a map showing his special contributions to the Imperial 
Edifice. 

I. Sir Walter Ralegh; the Brit- 

By 



ish Dominion of the West. 
Martin A. S. Hume. With Photo 
gravure Frontispiece and Maps. 
Crown 8vo. Pp. XX.-431. $1.50. 

2. Sir Thomas Maitland ; the 

Mastery of the Mediterranean. With 
photogravure Portrait and Maps. 
By Walter F re wen Lord. Pp. 
lix-301. $1.50. 



3. John and Sebastian Cabot; 

the Discovery of North America. 
By C. Raymond Beazley. With 
Maps. 331 pages. $1.50. 

4. Rajah Brooke; the English- 
man as Ruler of an Eastern State. 
By Sir Spenser St. John, G.C.M.G. 

5. Lord Clive ; the Foundation of 
British Rule in India. J5y Sir A. J. 
Arbuthnot, K.C.S.L, CLE. 



H Ufe 79 -*< 








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